Perfume in Ancient Egypt

Perfume Making

Ancient Egypt was famous for perfume-making everywhere, especially in (Mands) one of the Egyptian cities in North Egypt in Delta. This city Produce huge amount of perfumes which was known for its strong smell, lasts for a long time and retains its original color and that's what women prefer

And the most special thing about Mands Perfumes was that people used to store it for a long time and it still good to use without rotten

perfume in that time was just a scented cream or oil for the body because people didn't discover how to make Alcohol yet until the fourth century B.C.

 The most important main ingredients were Aromatic plant and oil, First Ancient Egyptians used to: sink the aromatic plants or flowers in oils for a long time, then put them all in a piece of cloth and squeeze it to get the last drop

at last, they boil all the flowers or aromatic plants in water to get the essential oil

 The most used oils were

Linum seed -

Castor oil -

Sesame oil -

(Balanos oil (it's Less viscosity so it's the best of them -

 (Almond oil and olive oil (not used so much -

 The Aromatic plants were added within a Strict framework starts from the light smell to the strongest one. The secret of why the Egyptians' body cream and oils were the best was because of the Ancient Egyptians knew when and how much should they add any of those Ingredients and the perfect temperature of each ingredient

  The sweet wine was one of the most common ingredients in this time , it was used to sink some kind of herbs in before they sink it in oil . sweet wine was used to mitigate some Perfume's smell and make it acceptable

Iris flowers were one of the best and famous body cream, the high class and royal families used it for its amazing smell and it was used by the doctors as a sedative too

Iris flowers, salt, honey, saffron, cinammon, cardamom, and wine were all used to make some of Iris oil for body, that's why it's so complicated and expensive

The ancient Egyptians also thought about another way to Perfuming their bodies other than oils and creams, they used the solid Animal's Grease by forming a solid piece of animal's grease and add some herbs to it to make the smell acceptable and then forming it again as a funnel to put it on hair

Women used this funnel at parties and big ceremonies but Unfortunately, it melts so quickly and makes clothes dirty so it wasn't so recommended but you can see some women in the Egyptian desert use it nowadays

A woman wear a funnel on her head

There is an important reason to use Alabaster Containers to keep all kinds of perfume in ancient Egypt like those Containers which was found in King Tut's grave
And the reason simply was that Alabaster is perfect to keep creams and oils without making it rotten
also Alabaster make creams mixed very well by the time