History Of Cologne
The history of cologne is very interesting. It is intertwined with the history of perfumes. The distinction between the colognes and perfumes is that of the concentration only. The relationship between the history of colognes and history of perfumes is obvious. The perfumes were an art in the Egypt, Persia and India.
The Europeans came in contact with Egyptians first. Thus the perfumes traveled to Europe. The Egyptians used incense as way of communicating with gods.
There after the perfumery grew in Europe.
The first ever cologne was produced by an Italian perfumer in the city of cologne in Germany. This was called as the eau de cologne. This means water from cologne in French. Cologne is a name of city in the Germany. In modern days, in perfumery world the word cologne is now used as a generic word.
Giovanni Maria Farina was the name of the inventor of the first ever eau de cologne. He was fascinated by the odor produced in the early springs in Italy. He wanted to imitate that odor. When he produced that odor, he gave it the name eau de cologne. Eau de cologne is a blend of extracts, water and alcohol. When the concentration of the extracts is pretty high we call it as the perfume and when the concentration is lowest we call it as eau de cologne.
The recorded history says that there was an Arab physician who first tried to prepare rosewater distilled water. This was way back in 10th century. This can b e called as an early attempt to produce some kind of cologne. In 12th century Lavender water distilled was produced by a German nun. This means cologne chemistry had made inroads from Egypt to Europe. In 1370 first alcohol based perfume was produced in Hungary. In 18th century a variant of this Hungary water was produced as eau de cologne by Farina. Lily of the valley and geranium perfumes were produced in London.
In 1752 cologne arrived in America. The famous no six cologne was produced in America by Dr William hunter. In 1794 cologne called as 4711cologne was produced in cologne city of Germany. It was occupied by French at that time and Napoleon used to take a bath of the diluted solution of this 4711 cologne.
In1856 Florida water was produced on the lines of eau de cologne using citrus extracts. From 1656 to 1890 lot many new eau de cologne variants were introduced in the American and other world markets. From 1922 to 1926 lot many developments took place giving a firm foundation to the production of cologne production industry. This is the brief history of cologne.
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