I assume that with the rise of industrialism and the changes in chemistry, there must be some pretty large effects on perfume.
Fragrance composition has changed quite a bit over the 19th and 20th centuries. The invention of new materials and the availability of synthetic materials completely changed how commercial fragrances are constructed.
In the beginning and middle of the 19th Century, fragrances were made entirely of natural materials and are typically fairly simple compositions by today’s standards…often Eau de Cologne style fragrances. Now, Eau de Cologne is one of those terms that can mean several different things in the fragrance world. Cologne is used as a generic term for men’s fragrance. Eau de Cologne can also be used on packaging to reflect the concentration of fragrance (though it often implies changes in formula as well). Originally though, Eau de Colognes referred to bright, citrus and aromatic herb style fragrances that were popularized by an Italian expat living in Cologne, Germany named Johann Maria Farina. Farina started selling his fragrances in 1709. Soon after, competitors stepped in and started making competing products, including 4711. These Eau de Colognes became popular and spread across the continent. Farina still has receipts for sales to Napoleon.
It’s interesting to note that despite some bitter fights with “copycat” fragrance makers and a relatively famous court case, Farina’s Eau de Cologne wasn’t really completely original to him. It was pretty obviously based upon earlier Italian health tonics/fragrances called Acqua Mirabilis. I say health tonics/fragrances because the lines between a fragrance and a medicine were much blurrier when the miasma theory of disease transmission was common.
A few fragrance houses that are still around in one form or another made these Eau de Colognes in the 19th Century and if you’re interested in smelling them, they’re available. The formulas may have changed somewhat due to changing regulations, attempts to reduce cost and/or increase consistency but you can get still get a feel for a traditional Eau de Cologne by smelling fragrances like:
Please note that these are citrus heavy fragrances and citrus notes tend to not age well so if you have an old bottle from 30 years ago that you inherited or some such there’s a good chance it’s gone off.
Fast forward to the 1880s. This was an important time for fragrance because we first start to see synthetic materials appearing. Houbigant’s Fougere Royale, done by Paul Parquet in 1882 made use of a synthetic version of a naturally occurring material called coumarin. It also created the template for a style of fragrance that is popular today, called the fougere. Fougeres are supposed to smell the way that M. Parquet believed that a fern SHOULD smell, despite them not smelling anything like that in nature. They rely on a mixture of lavender, oakmoss and coumarin (which is usually referred to as tonka bean in notes listings), often with geranium and bergamot as well. Coumarin is a really lovely smelling material that is found in nature in tonka beans, lavender, sweet grass and a bunch of other things. It’s sweet and spicy and a bit grassy and can be found in a lot of fragrances today. It’s also on the list of EU potential allergens, so it’s labeled individually in the ingredients of most products that contain it. There’s a good chance that you have something containing it in your bathroom right now.
As mentioned before, fougeres have remained popular ever since. Dana Canoe, Azzaro pour homme YSL Kouros and Davidoff Cool Water are all examples, though Cool Water had another major twist with the addition of aquatic elements.
Unfortunately, Fougere Royale isn’t available in its original form anymore. There’s a fragrance on the market with the same name by Houbigant, but it was completely redone.
7 years later, in 1889, Guerlain released Jicky, which included synthetic vanillin for the first time. The early synthetic vanillin used by Guerlain was contaminated by smoky scented phenols, which made for a really lovely smell that became one of Guerlain’s signatures. Jicky was sort of like a vanilla heavy fougere that was also the precursor to Shalimar which is considered the the first “Oriental” fragrance. It’s still available today, though like most fragrances from this era the formula has had to be modified to meet modern requirements. It’s also one of my favorite fragrances, though it may smell old fashioned to a lot of folks.
At this point, fragrances were still mostly made with natural materials, but the 1880s were the inflection point. Guerlain Apres l’Ondee (1906) used anisic aldehyde. Chanel No.5 (1921) made heavy use of aldehydes that have what we think of today as the typical aldehyde scent profile (e.g. laundry aldehydes like aldehyde C12 MNA). Shalimar made use of ethyl vanillin. Nitro musks were commonly used in this era as well, which were originally discovered when Albert Baur realized that one of his attempts to make an improved version of TNT actually smelled really good. The synthetic white musk Exaltolide also became available in the 1920s.
Over the following decades, more and more new materials would be introduced with fragrances slowly starting to make use of them.
Fast forward to today.
Despite the fact that notes listings are available for most fragrances, typically listing notes that are recognizable and found in nature, the majority of any given modern fragrance is typically made from a set of materials that a normal person has never smelled in isolation and has no real reference for. There are certainly some natural materials used, but the bulk of the formula for modern fragrances are made from aromachemicals. Some of them are found in nature but are isolated or created in a lab, such as linalool, geraniol, coumarin, vanillin and ambroxan. Some aren’t found anywhere in nature, such as Hedione, Galaxolide, Iso E Super, and Calone 1951.
Trying to explain how a modern fragrance smells using only notes that would be familiar to the average person is sort of like trying to explain the contents of a modern office using only words that a 2nd century Roman would know. You can make approximations, but they’re not terribly accurate.
Unfortunately, fragrance formulas are kept secret, so it’s difficult to show specific examples, but the following may be illustrative:
This image was taken from a fire insurance formula book in New Jersey from 1944. Folks with sharp eyes and an interest in fragrance history may note that Henry Robert may very well be an Americanization of Henri Robert, who headed Coty in NY in the early 1940s before moving on to head Chanel in the 50s. They may also notice the “suggestions from Carles” section, who is almost certainly Jean Carles, one of the fathers of modern perfumery. Recreating fragrances that you don’t have the formula for is a common exercise for perfumers, both for practice and for business reasons. This appears to be an attempt to reverse engineer the formula for Guerlain Jicky (1889). This is almost certainly NOT the formula for Jicky, but it shows how experienced, trained perfumers who were both likely familiar with actual fragrance formulas from that era would go about recreating a fragrance from the late 1800s.
Note that the materials are mostly natural, though the coumarin and vanillin would have been synthetic, as would the Musk Ketone.
As a point of comparison, this is an example of a modern perfumery “sample formula” put out by Givaudan, one of the big 3 oil houses, which are the companies behind the scenes that manufacture most fragrances and compose most formulas. They send these out so that you have a frame of reference for how to use a material that they’ve created and are trying to sell:
Total: 1000
There is a single natural oil in the above formula, coming in at about 7% of the total. For those who don’t know, petitgrain is orange tree leaves The rest consists of some materials that exist in nature but have likely been made in a lab (geranyl acetate, linalyl acetate). The rest don’t exist in nature (but they smell really good).
This also sort of takes us full circle because the above formula would be used as an accord in a modern eau de cologne, which is kind of where we started.
In recent decades, there have been massive upheavals due to changes in regulation around fragrance safety, centered on IFRA, the industry regulatory and safety body, but most of the interesting bits are in the last 20 years. At least that gives me some time to get my notes together. I hope this was helpful.
For further reading on the technical aspects, I’d suggest my favorite perfumery textbook “Perfumery: Practice and Principles by Calkin and Jelenik.” Other bits and pieces in this response come from an assortment of places. If there’s a specific question, I’ll dig up the reference.
For those of you who have found yourself fascinated by the history of fragrance and are looking for more to read, I’d suggest checking out Lizzie Ostrom’s “A Century of Scents” and Turin and Sanchez’s “Perfumes: The Guide.”