Many items of perfumery, especially the expanding and popular
range of scented waters, could also be described as medicines. Under a
1785 Act of Parliament stamp duties had to be paid on licences to sell
medicine and on many of the medicines themselves. A similar Act in
1786 extended stamp duties to ‘Sweet Scents, Odors, Perfumes, and
Cosmetics’. However the blurred line between perfume and medicine
encouraged dirty tricks by informers. In Cambridge in March 1788 one
informer was busy buying small quantities of essence of lemon from
apothecaries and then informing against them as perfumers without
licenses. The enraged populace forced him to be
escorted to the local tavern (ironically named The
Rose), where he was held prisoner at the behest of
the mob. Only after the Riot Act was read was the
informer able to escape. The attempts of the state
to tax perfumery showed just how blurred the line
between luxury and medicine, pleasure and health,
continued to be.
IN the later 18th century perfumers emerged who
built a much wider brand name for themselves,
often on the back of a particular commodity.
Richard Warren, who in the 1770s had shops in
Marylebone, Cheapside, Bath and Tunbridge Wells,
was one such individual. Warren’s Milk of Roses,
a mixture of almonds, rose water, spirits of wine,oil of lavender and soap, was highly popular. American shops advertised
‘London Milk of Roses’, while perfumers in Edinburgh assured their
customers that their own milk of roses was just as good, if not better
than, Warren’s much loved composition.
The popularity of Warren’s brand signalled the rise of rose as a
popular scent. This represented something of a back-to-the-future
moment for British perfumery. Otto of roses had been popular during
the early 16th century at the court of Henry VIII. Dispensed from
casting bottles to infuse the spaces of the court, it became a key part
of Henry’s performance of power. In the 18th century its connotation
shifted from kingly magnificence to the exotic fragrance of the imperial
east. Marketed as ‘Indian’ or ‘Persian’, the demand for otto of roses
represented the growing influence of British imperial expansion on
luxury goods.
Tracking changing attitudes to perfume usage is more di cult.
Among the problems that a historian of smells and smelling faces is
that the unexpected, inappropriate, or out of place odours are the ones
that tend to be recorded. In diaries, periodicals and satires it is the
misuses of perfume that tend to be discussed. In the 18th century the
overuse of smelling bottles might be criticised for their role in the af-
fected display of nervous sensibility. Yet most criticisms of perfumery
were aimed at the use of highly scented hair powder, handkerchiefs or
pastes, all of which tended to infuse the atmosphere around the body
with scent. By the late 17th century the fop – an e eminate figure of
fun – was criticised for his use of overbearing perfumery and inability
to stand the more masculine odours of tobacco. The macaronis of the
1770s, fashionable gentlemen who paraded London’s pleasure gardens
to display their continental costume and cosmetics, were also criti-
cised for their overpowering atmosphere of ‘ambrosial essences’ that