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Vintage perfumes for women
There are so many perfumes on the market today and we have been using them for many years. Let’s take a look at ten of the vintage perfumes for women. Perfume dates back as far as 1371 when we saw the first modern alcohol-based fragrance for Queen Elizabeth of Hungary.
There are many collectors of vintage perfumes and this is another one along with the world’s most expensive perfume to add to the collection.
Those who collect such fragrances find it intriguing how scents have changed over the years.
Vintage perfumes are still popular today They will also know that some ingredients such as oakmoss, which has been used in a variety of fragrances and is a species of lichen, have been restricted in recent years.
Some have been banned as they are no longer considered safe to use in perfumes so other fragrance notes have been sourced instead.
If you have a collection of vintage perfumes sitting inside your wardrobe, keep hold of them. Perfumes dating back to the 1950s such as the iconic bottle of Chanel No.5 are well worth keeping.
Perfumes dating before 2000 and are familiar brands are still worth keeping as they too can be sold and money can be made from them.
We all have memories created by the perfume we used to wear. Some may still be wearing the same scent today especially if it’s their signature fragrance.
Such perfumes bring special events to life, including happy and sad memories and some lots are still on the market today to keep those memories alive.
Some may see vintage perfumes as something our Nan used to wear. That strong and overpowering scent that lingers for hours and in every room. Many are delicate but unforgettable fragrances.
Vintage perfumes for women
1. Shalimar By Guerlain
The oldest perfume and an oriental fragrance was created in 1925 by the perfume house Guerlain, called Shalimar. Named after the Garden of Shalimar and its history of being created by Emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal as a romantic gesture.
Its scent is still sold today and has fragrance notes of rose, tonka bean, jasmine and bergamot to name a few.
With base notes of musk, vanilla and sandalwood, there is a beautiful mixture and combination of strong and elegant fragrance notes in this bottle.
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2. Anais Anais L’original By Cacharel
Launched back in 1978 and named after Anaitis, the ‘Goddess Of Love‘, this fragrance is still very popular today and was the first fragrance produced by Cacharel.
It was very much a fragrance created to attract teenagers with its floral and youthful scent.
Fragrance notes of sandalwood, honeysuckle, orange blossom, lavender, lemon and bergamot certainly caught the attention of the younger generation. With its floral, pretty bottle, most teenagers owned a bottle of this distinctive scent.
3. Opium By Yves Saint Laurent
There won’t be many who won’t of heard of Opium. Launched back in 1977 and created by Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac, this perfume has strong oriental notes and a very distinctive fragrance to it. With top notes of plum, cloves, pepper, jasmine, coriander, bergamot, citrus and West Indian bay, this spicy perfume should be worn with minimal application.
Added to the fact that this bottle is very distinctive too, it’s possibly one of those perfumes that will go down in history. Nowadays we also see Black Opium on the market.
With notes of pear, pink pepper, orange blossom, vanilla, patchouli, cedar and cashmere wood, it’s very much just as powerful as the original. If you like powerful scents that make a statement and can carry off such an iconic scent, take a look on Amazon.
4. L’air Du Temps By Nina Ricci
It’s not very often that we hear of Nina Ricci’s perfumes but it is one of the most popular of the 20th century, alongside Chanel no.5.
Launched back in 1948, this floral/ spicy perfume with its unique glass dove cap contains stunning notes of jasmine, rose, sandalwood and amber to truly capture the sense of being ‘free‘.
It was created in the wake of World War II by the French perfumer Francis Fabron, in collaboration with Nina Ricci and roughly translated from French to mean ‘the trend we have now/something in the air’. With its brightly coloured box and elegant bottle, we do get a feel for summer, blue skies and open spaces.
Available to purchase on Amazon.
5. Youth Dew By Estée Lauder
This fragrance was created in 1953 and started as a bath oil. Women felt confident to use it every day, and so it soon became a popular product to use as a fragrance.
Back in the day, during the 1905s, perfume was only ever bought as a gift from a husband or partner and not by women. Estée Lauder created this elegant bottled fragrance, and women soon fell in love with its spicy, amber, rich floral and woody notes.
As men loved its scent too, it became one of the sexiest fragrances ever created and still captures the hearts of many women today. Women will have heard and used the cosmetics we see in-store and online today, and created by Estée Lauder and Youth Dew is the first fragrance created by her.
A true classic and if you’re a lover of rose, lavender, jasmine, spices and patchouli notes, take a look on Amazon.
6. Mitsouko By Guerlain
Another vintage perfume by Guerlain and on first impression, this bottle looks a little masculine. Launched in 1919, Mitsouko captures the chypre and fruity fragrance family inside this bottle. It has a combination of beautiful notes too.
With jasmine, rose, cinnamon, amber, peach, lilac, oak moss and bergamot, this fragrance was inspired by the story of impossible love between Mitsouko and a British officer. With such a combination of scents, it’s not your average daytime perfume with its heavy base notes of amber, oak moss and cinnamon.
Not the cheapest fragrance on the market either but well worth trying if you get the chance, purely for such beautiful fragrance notes.
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Available to purchase on eBay
FRANCE – DECEMBER 13: Mitsouko perfume bottle, 1946, blown crystal, molded and cut by Guerlain (1798 to 1864). France, 20th century. Paris, Musée Baccarat (Glass Museum) (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) 7. L’Heure Bleue By Guerlain
Another fragrance created by Guerlain. This one was launched in 1912 and contains beautiful notes of coriander, bergamot, violet, cloves ylang-ylang, jasmine, orchid vanilla, Sandalwood, musk and tonka bean.
Classed as one of Guerlains’s best classic fragrances in its distinctive bottle, it is a symbol of royalty as one of the Queen’s favourite scents according to Vogue, alongside Floris, white rose EDT. Check out eBay to purchase your bottle of vintage history.
8. Apres L’Ondee By Guerlain
With its combination of violet, orange blossom and spicy Anais notes, this perfume was created by Jacques Guerlain in 1906. Apres L’onee (April shower) is very much a springtime fragrance after a rain shower.
The smell of freshness that reaches our nose as the rain hits the countryside and then the sun comes out to warm the scent of the wet leaves again, is captured with this scent.
Guerlain does showcase many a perfume fragrance and a history of being one of the world’s greatest perfume houses.
Available to buy on eBay
Apres L’Ondee perfume 9. Tabu By Dana
Tabu was created by the French perfumer Jean Carles and was launched in 1932 by a company also associated with the likes of Nina Ricci and Christian Dior.
Not the most elegant of bottles for a female perfume, with a simple design with an almost ‘old’ and ‘heavy’ appearance and dark bottle but its fragrance notes make up for it.
A mixture of patchouli ( and a high dose at 10% ) combined with clove, bergamot, orange, Coriander, rose, ylang-ylang, Sandalwood, musk and amber, gives us a heavy oriental scent and one of the world’s first strongest.
Check out eBay for their bottle.
10. Arpege By Lanvin
With its name derived from the musical term ‘arpeggio’, this fragrance was released in 1927 and is a classic scent among some of the world’s most popular perfumes.
Similar to Chanel N0.5, Arpege is very much a flower perfume.
It contains peach, orange blossom, honeysuckle, iris, rose, vanilla, musk, geranium, sandalwood, patchouli and vetiver.
It has quite a simplistic bottle with its black base and gold cap and was created by Paul Vacher and Andre Fraysse. Affordable on eBay.
Do you own a vintage perfume? I’d love to hear which one you have ! Drop your comment below or contact us for any inquiries regarding finding the right scent.
If you prefer more recent fragrances, take a look at our perfume and beauty resources page.
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How is perfume made ?
Millions of us, both men and women and even children, love to wear a fragrance but how is perfume made? Whether it is for a night out, just to wear when meeting a friend for coffee or a day in the office, perfumes are a hugely popular product and have been around for thousands of years.
Cleopatra was a well-known perfume wearer from ancient history Wearing perfume can have so many benefits from lifting our mood, complimenting an outfit or grabbing the attention of the secret admirer. It’s become part of our everyday wear and with so many on the market today, we have lots to choose from.
We have already covered how to store perfume correctly and how to use perfume to get the most out of your scent but what about where perfume comes from?
The history of perfume dates back to ancient times, as far back as 3,000 BC and it was the Greeks who first created perfumes in the same way as they are created today.
The creation of perfume
There are lots of raw materials that are required before the manufacturing process starts. Ingredients such as spices, leaves, fruits, resins and flowers are all used during the first stages of creating a perfume.
Spices 
Leaves 
Fruits 
Resins Without the addition of flowers, it will be very difficult to create a perfume without floral essences and most perfumes are based around floral scents so these are essential ingredients too. When we think of fragrances such as Chanel, they make their perfume from their flower fields.
This is to make sure they have enough product to create their perfumes. Chanel is the largest fashion brand in the world and Chanel No. 5 is an iconic perfume.
Animal products can also be present in perfumes such as musk and ambergris. Musk is very commonly used as a base note in perfumes. Musk is secreted from animals such as the musk deer.
The musk deer 
The sperm whale Incredibly, ambergris is produced in the digestive system of sperm whales which means that whale poo is used in perfumes. The smell matures and as it ages, it develops into a beautiful scent that once diluted with alcohol, is used in perfumery.
It’s not always easy to get scents for perfumes from nature so sometimes synthetic chemicals might be used instead.
We are in a world of cruelty-free perfumes nowadays so using synthetic chemicals can save the lives of animals that are killed for their oils to be used in the making of perfumes.
Many perfume companies such as FM WORLD are cruelty-free.
How the oil is extracted for making perfume
To begin with, oil is taken from flowers and plant material so that it can be used to create fragrances.
For the oil to be extracted from the plant one of how this is done is by expression. The plants are squeezed until the oil is released. A bit like squeezing juice out of an orange or a lemon.Another method that is used for boiling plant parts is to steam the plants to get the oils out. This process is known as steam distillation.
Another method is where plant parts are dissolved in benzene. They are then exposed to ethyl alcohol. This is then burned off so that the perfume oil remains and can be used.
Curious as to why perfume is so expensive?
When oil from around 660 roses is taken to create a 15ml bottle of French perfume, it’s no surprise why fragrances cost a lot of money.
Along with the celebrity endorsers, fancy packaging and sales assistance, it’s easy to see how a small bottle of perfume can end up with a hefty price tag.
Relevant post – The cost of perfume
How the experts create a perfume scent
It’s not a quick process when it comes to creating perfumes. It can take many years and lots of ingredients before the experts reach the desired scent and formula. Of course, the result is a genuine perfume that we can wear for around 2 years and be complimented on by others.
The experts must take time and do extensive testing and mixing to create the perfect scent.
Once the formula is created, it is then used to blend the extracted oils. When the experts have reached their desired scent, they mix alcohol into the mixture to dilute the ingredients.
The more alcohol that is added to the mixture, the stronger the perfume will be. If we look at cologne, for example, this will contain the most alcohol.
When you purchase an eau de toilette, this will contain less alcohol than cologne and if you purchase a perfume, this will have the least amount of alcohol and therefore will give the strongest scent.
Perfume will contain around 40% of essential oils and cologne will have around 10% of essential oils.
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What happens after the oil and scents have been added
Once the oils have been extracted from the plants and blended in with alcohol, the mixture is then ready for the ageing process. In order to do this, the perfume is set in a dark, cool room. It will then stay there for several months without being disturbed or touched.
Whilst the perfume has been left, this will help to bind the oils and the alcohol together. Quite normally, the smell will be stronger after the ageing process. Adjustments to the blending can take place at this time.
When you see a bottle of perfume in a department store, it’s been through a long process to get there. It will have been thoroughly tested to make sure that the scent is perfect and how it should be before it is allowed to go on sale to the public.
So the next time you purchase a bottle of your favourite perfume, remember just how long it’s taken to get onto the shelves and in your possession.
Perfume stores Do you have a favourite scent? Do you wear a different one every day to match your mood? Let us know in the comments below.
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Chanel No. 5 perfume history
Chanel No.5 perfume has an iconic and fascinating history. Whenever we mention Chanel No.5 five, there are probably very few women in the world, who haven’t heard of this famous fragrance, and indeed, many men as well. We automatically associate it with a classy fragrance that remains incredibly popular today, just as it was when it was first created.
With fragrance notes belonging to the floral perfume family group, including fruity, oriental, aldehydic, citrus, and woody notes, it captured the hearts of women, not just for its iconic name.
So, where does the history of Chanel No. 5 perfume begin?
A classic Chanel No.5 perfume created back in 1920.
The iconic Coco Chanel Chanel No.5 perfume history
The story began with a remarkably clever French businesswoman—Coco Chanel. She was the darling of the Parisian social elite and set out to create a fragrance that would revolutionize how women smelled.
By the early 1920s, Chanel had already become a phenomenon in the French fashion scene. She had a clear vision of her own style and projected this image to women worldwide. By 1921, she had established successful boutiques in Paris, Deauville, and Biarritz, and her success only continued to grow.
She even owned a villa in the south of France and drove her own blue Rolls Royce—a classic car for a classic lady and her creation.
With her ongoing success, she now aspired to create a fragrance that would match the essence of the new, modern women she epitomised.
Unfortunately, Chanel’s background was quite complex and marked by challenges, and this complexity found its way into her signature fragrance.Affiliate disclosure
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An iconic creation by Coco Chanel Chanel’s mother worked as a laundry woman in rural farms, and when her mother passed away, Chanel was sent to a Cistercian convent at Aubazine. Her father, on the other hand, was a market stall holder.
Growing up in this environment, she became familiar with the scent of soap and freshly cleaned skin, which stayed with her for years.
Chanel was very conscious about cleanliness, and when she worked with other mistresses of the rich, she often complained about their odor. The combination of body odors and musk was not a pleasant one.
She faced challenges in finding someone to commission her creation with this new fragrance. In the 1920s, creating a fresh fragrance often involved using lemon, orange, citrus, and bergamot fragrances.
These scents were fresh-smelling, a perfect combination for a ladies’ fragrance, but they didn’t last very well when applied to the skin. Finding a scent that lasts throughout the day is a common quest.
During the summer of 1920, while on holiday with her lover, Chanel heard of a perfumer who might be able to help her create the perfect perfume. It seemed like the ideal solution.
This perfumer was a highly sophisticated man named Ernest Beaux, who lived nearby in Grasse, southern France, the world capital of perfume.
Beaux listened to Chanel’s quest and eagerly accepted the challenge of crafting the perfect scent.
Pick a number …Chanel No.5
It took Beaux several months to perfect this new fragrance, and eventually, he presented Chanel with 10 samples. These samples were numbered from one to five and from 20 to 24.
Chanel ultimately chose number five as her fragrance. Interestingly, there are rumours that the concoction for this scent resulted from a laboratory mistake.”
Beaux’s assistant added an unprecedented quantity of aldehydes to the fragrance. Aldehydes have a soapy scent, which triggered memories of Chanel’s childhood in a convent and her later life as a mistress of luxury.”
An iconic perfume- Chanel No 5
The scent, which combined notes of jasmine, rose, sandalwood, and vanilla, was an instant success—a wonderful blend of fragrances.
To celebrate, Chanel invited Beaux and his friend to a popular restaurant and sprayed the perfume around the table. Every woman who passed by stopped to ask about the fragrance and its origin.
Chanel knew that she had a hit on her hands, and she was well on her way to creating an incredible perfume. From that moment on, consumers realised they had a fragrance unlike any they had ever smelled before.
related post: Do you sell designer perfume ?
Chanel no.5 evolved.
The history behind the creation of Chanel No. 5 perfume BBC news
Chanel No. 5 is a legendary and iconic perfume created by the renowned fashion house Chanel.
First introduced in 1921 by Coco Chanel herself, it has since become one of the world’s most famous and recognizable fragrances. Chanel No. 5 not only revolutionized the perfume industry but also set new standards for luxury fragrances.
Here are some key features and facts about Chanel No. 5 perfume:
- Composition: Chanel No. 5 is a floral-aldehyde fragrance that harmoniously blends various notes to create a complex and sophisticated scent. Its character is primarily defined by a rich floral bouquet, featuring prominent notes of May rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang. The fragrance also incorporates aldehydes, which impart a unique and sparkling quality.
2. Timeless Appeal: Chanel No. 5 is renowned for its timeless appeal and enduring popularity. It has remained a symbol of elegance and sophistication for over a century and has transcended generations, captivating women of different ages and backgrounds.
3. Marilyn Monroe Connection: Chanel No. 5 gained even more fame when American actress and icon Marilyn Monroe famously declared that she wore nothing but Chanel No. 5 to bed. Her endorsement helped solidify the perfume’s association with glamour and sensuality.
4. The Mystery of the Name: The origin of the name “Chanel No. 5” is often debated. Some theories suggest that Coco Chanel chose it because it was the fifth sample presented to her by the perfumer, Ernest Beaux, while others believe that she simply liked the number five and considered it lucky.
5. The Bottle: Chanel No. 5 is presented in an elegant, minimalist bottle designed by Coco Chanel herself. The bottle’s design reflects her preference for simplicity and understated luxury. It features clean lines, a rectangular shape, and a simple black-and-white label with the Chanel logo.
6. Enduring Popularity: Chanel No. 5 has maintained its status as one of the best-selling perfumes worldwide for many decades. Its popularity can be attributed to its timeless scent, association with luxury and sophistication, and the brand’s continuous efforts to promote and reinvent the fragrance.
Over the years, Chanel has introduced variations of the original No. 5, including different concentrations (e.g., Eau de Parfum, Eau de Toilette) and limited edition releases. These variations offer different intensities and interpretations of the classic Chanel No. 5 scent while maintaining its core essence.
Chanel No. 5 represents a significant milestone in the history of perfumery and continues to be cherished by fragrance enthusiasts and Chanel aficionados worldwide. It embodies the timeless elegance and artistic vision of Coco Chanel, making it an enduring symbol of luxury and femininity.
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When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
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