All about antique perfume bottles
The perfume industry is a multi-million dollar industry. Perfumes are some of the most sought-after consumer products in the market. Just take a look at how much big a space department stores and even grocery stores give to perfume products. Many people love perfumes, but while most of them love perfumes and buy them for their fragrances, there are those who love and buy perfumes because of the perfume bottles the fragrances are packaged in. The perfume bottles today come in a wide array of sizes, shapes and designs. They are, in themselves, works of art. But if the elegant perfume bottles of today impress you, wait until you see antique perfume bottles!
You will find antique perfume bottles in a variety of shapes and colors, as well as types of container material. So how did the practice of storing perfumes in bottles begin? Perfumes have been around for thousands of years, and in many cultures, perfumes were widely used in one form or another. Perfumes needed to be stored in containers that sealed in their fragrances. In the past, man tried storing perfumes in various containers in order to preserve their scents.
The Egyptians stored their perfumes in bottles made of alabaster and ceramic. It was soon after that the Roman and Greek perfume makers came up with their own bottles for storing their fragrances. The antique perfume bottles by the Romans and Greek had geometric decorations, and some of the bottles were adorned by miniature fresco-like paintings.
Around 1500 B.C., perfume bottles made of glass started appearing in Greece and Rome. These antique perfume bottles became a status symbol -- they were exclusively used to hold the perfumes of the noble and wealthy classes. The Greek and Roman craftsmen continued to make great strides in the creation of antique perfume bottles, which by then were crafted to mimic nature.
The antique perfume bottles underwent major changes again when the blown glass technique was developed and perfected. It wasn't long before colored glass perfume bottles appeared, and it eventually, they became symbols of status in society.
At the height of the popularity of colored glass perfume bottles, China introduced to the world new designs in perfume bottles and changed how antique perfume bottles appeared. The Chinese created charming little containers made from porcelain. For a long time, perfumes were sold in plain containers and people simply transferred their precious fragrances in the decorative perfumed bottles when they got home.
Buying separate elegant perfume containers was a trend that continued for hundreds of years. However, as perfumes became more and more popular among the masses and not just the noble and wealthy, perfume makers needed their perfume bottles -- which used to be plain containers -- to be more appealing to their customers. So they invited craftsmen skilled in decorative glass making to create for them attractive bottles that they could use for holding their perfumes.
From this point onwards, antique perfume bottles boasted of elegant embellishments and designs that stirred the imagination. No longer did people have to buy separate perfume bottles; the perfumes started coming in their own beautiful looking perfume bottles. The antique perfume bottles owned by the wealthy and noble classes are now collector's items.