Perfume Guide

egyptian pefume guide

First upon entering an Egyptian perfumery, the guest will be handed a shopping list. This is common practice in Egypt, and makes it easier to take down notes while the guide in the perfumery explains their wares. Then the guest is offered a drink. It is good to accept the offer graciously, and choose from Egyptian favourite teas like mint tea, hibiscus tea (kerkadeh) and aniseed tea (anis).

Sometimes guests have a chance to see how glass is blown to make exquisite perfume bottles, in all shapes and colours, ranging from emerald greens and royal purples to light yellows and pretty pinks. Such perfume bottles can be found all over Egypt, such as the Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar and hotel shops, and can cost from LE10 to LE300, depending on the quality and size of bottle.

The perfume factory guide invites the guest to sit down and begins explaining the list of aromas. He usually begins with the single natural oils such as their famous lotus flower, papyrus or jasmine oil, the first two being the national flowers of Upper and Lower Egypt. Jars of oil are passed around, and the guest is encouraged to put a drop on a small area of the arm, rub it and smell it. As all these oils are 100% natural oils without alcohol to dilute them, they are fresh, strong and not at all cloying.

One trip to Egypt is enough to know that one of the grandest treasure that remains are the people, and the hand made products they produce are the best you can find and see in Egypt. There are many varieties of hand made products, including such items as  alabaster objects,  painted papyrus, brass and glassware, among others. Nevertheless, there are some products people say are hand made but in fact, are not. However, glass perfume bottles are exclusively hand blown, becoming beautiful works of pure art.

From the earliest times, Egyptians have worked with glass, and even prior to their capacity to actually produce this substance, they used a limited amount of natural glass produced through volcanic action or meteorite impacts in various jewelry and decorative effects. The Egyptians probably did not invent man made glass, but they did adapt this technology early on for their own uses. Initially, it seems that the first examples of man-made glass from Mesopotamia and Egypt were beads dating from the 3rd millennium BC.