Well tie me up, it’s Clara Bow
by: Hella Goode

This week it’s Anne Hathaway, the next week Natalie Portman and after that maybe Mila Kunis. Who is the new “it girl” in Hollywood? Reaching “it girl” status is great while it lasts, but there was only one original “it girl” and her name was Clara Bow. Women adored her for her spunkiness and free spirit. Yet she was gifted in attracting men as well. She had that unattainable and enviable spark that got her cast time and time again.

Bow began her career in silent film and was one of the few actors of the time that managed to successfully transition to “talkies.” Her voice was not the silky smooth one sought after by many actors of the time, but still a unique one that drew the ears of those who heard it. Yet what she was most known for was for being the first to hint at the existence of sex in film. Granted for today’s
standards it was still tame, but for the time, Clara’s flirtation was hot as a skillet.

Just as her star shot to the sky, she began to burn. Paramount began typecasting her as mostly a flapper, or a party girl. She displayed her acting abilities including her emotional range through other roles although not as plentiful sometimes as a jailbird and other times as a tomboy.

Strangely, for a person so desired as an adult, Clara was born unwanted. She was born in 1905 in Brooklyn to a mother who was mentally ill and her father had no interest in her. Her dreams were her escape.

That was until she won the 1921 Fame and Fortune contest looking for the next big thing by Motion Picture, Motion Picture Classic, and Shadowland Magazines. They reported that she had “a genuine spark of the divine fire.” She was cast in a small part in Beyond the Rainbow in 1922, but was disappointed to find that her scene was cut before release. However things changed when B.P.Schulberg got hold of Clara. Soon she had more work than had thought possible.

She was more versatile than given credit for by many film historians. Despite giving such brilliant dramatic performances, it was Clara’s flapper roles that increasingly drew the attentions of millions of American film-goers.

Riding on the successes of The Plastic Age, Dancing Mothers, and especially
Mantrap, Clara was fast becoming a major star. Men started to desire her voluptuous body and became completely mesmerized by her effervescent charm and breath-taking beauty. Clara even set fashion trends among women.

Yet a dispute with assistant Daisy DeVoe which lead to a court case took Clara into a downward spiral that she found nearly impossible to escape. Ms. DeVoe had difficulty getting along with Bow’s then husband, Rex Bell, who may have gotten the allegations going. In the trial, DeVoe alleged that Bow had a libido that wouldn’t stop. She claimed the actress had her way with countless men and even dipped a toe into bestiality. Clara found it hard to repolish her reputation and began having breakdowns. She became known as “Crisis-a-day Clara.” Studios and industry people distanced themselves from her.

She later moved to Nevada on hiatus from films, became the mother of two sons and began to recuperate mentally from all she had endured, not only in Hollywood, but from her life from day one.

Eventually she came back to movies in Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoopla (1933). However her party girl reputation was stuck like the gum to the back of her ear. In 1988 David Stenn wrote a biography about Clara called Runnin’ Wild in which his pen burned in his mission to clarify and rectify the wild rumors about her.

One might ask what good such an effort would do, over twenty years after herdeath, on September 26, 1965. As long as there are those who enjoyed Clara’s life and work, then setting the record straight would be worth it.

Who was Clara Bow, the “it girl”? It can be summed up in one of her personal
quotes. “All the time the flapper is laughin’ and dancin’, there’s a feelin’ of
tragedy underneath…”

Remembering a Legend: Tura Satana

By: Hella Goode

“Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (Russel Meyer, 1965)…the title alone grips you. When you see Tura Satana as Varla, it kind of gropes you. But you wouldn’t want to grope her because she really would kick your ass. Tura, born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi on July 10, 1938 in Hokkaido, Japan lived a less than privileged life, although those are usually the more interesting ones.

Her family immigrated to the United States and grew. She attended James A. Riis Elementary School in a part of Chicago where racial categories were distinct. She was neither black nor white, in fact she was multiracial. Yet people only saw her as Japanese, and after World War II that was not a good thing. She was constantly taunted by the other girls until one day she finally fought back, and as you might guess….she kicked their asses!

She spent more time fighting than most of us think anyone should have to, but these struggles helped form the foxy femme fatale she would become. She was an early bloomer which seemed to lead to trouble. As a young girl she was gang raped. Understandably, this left her shaken, but also very angry. As if it were a page torn out of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill manuscript she went on a revenge manifesto and over time found each and every one of the so-called young men and, again, she kicked their asses!

Her voluptuous build at such an age convinced others of her adulthood, helping her score jobs as a model and dancer way before legal to do so, according to most sources beginning at the age of 13. She was 5′ 7″ and by the time she was fully developed was said to be a 40FF bra size. Her burlesque routines weren’t run of the mill strip numbers. She was very athletic, graceful and artistic too. Her skills as a martial artist and her sultriness as a dancer lead to roles in other movies and on television as well. About her dancing she said, “When I was dancing burlesque was an art – classy and elegant and requiring talent. I got out of it when it started to become raunchy and lost the art. Now they call it nude dancing, but it’s plain old pornography as far as I’m concerned. They do things on stage that I wouldn’t have even thought of doing.”

As was common in Japan, early on her parents had planned her arranged marriage. She was 13 at the time and he was 17. As was to be expected by a girl who had seen that life could be better than the four walls of a domestic home, she broke free of it. It was not her only marriage. Tura had also married John Satana, giving her his now infamous last name, and Endel Jurman whom she loved dearly. She had a daughter named Kalani later at 19 years old.

Tarantino must have been extremely mused by Tura as parts of Death Proof seem to be reminiscent of her performances as an actress where she took names and kicked ass and had fun in muscle cars with other hot chicks who kick ass. Some say that he even based the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and Lucy Liu’s part Japanese character, Oren Ishii from snippets of Tura herself. Her image sparks flames even now.

It was tempting to think that Tura would have even kicked death’s ass had it knocked on her door before coming in. It had to happen. All that ass-kicking can take its toll on the heart. This February 4, 2011 in Reno, Nevada, Ms. Tura Satana passed of heart failure. Tura, darling, KAIP, may you Kick Ass In Peace, or Pieces……

Herstory of Jayne Mansfield

by: Hella Goode

http://www.jaynemansfield.com/about/quotes.html

“When I’m 100 I’ll still be doing pin-ups,” said a young, beautiful Jayne Mansfield. Too bad that was not meant to come true. At the still maturing age of 34, Jayne, a passenger in the front of a car with her children riding in back, was killed when the vehicle collided with a large truck on her way back from Mississippi.

Jayne was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 to Herbert and Vera Palmer. She was a kind and generous child, who always had hope in her heart and stars in her eyes. Yet, those stars dimmed when her father died and Jayne was only three years old.

It was no crime. There was no need for Jayne’s real-life daughter, Mariska Hartigay, who plays Officer Olivia Bennett on Law & Order’s SVU series to investigate. Vera wouldn’t be kept down about it and neither would young Jayne. Jayne married Paul Mansfield in a hurry and gave birth to Jayne Marie Mansfield. She kept the name even after she didn’t keep him. It just sounded right.

Jayne began to work in Hollywood as a model but found that the 1950’s world was a little taken aback by her large chest. But her potential shone through. She liked to say, “A forty-one inch bust and a lot of perseverance will get you more than a cup of coffee-a lot more. But most girls don’t know what to do with what they’ve got.”

Jayne was working her way up and starting to outshine the crowd when she became distracted by Mickey Hartigay, 1956’s  Mr. Universe. Soon there were three more twinkles in Jayne’s eyes: Micklos, Zoltan, and Mariska. The pair were very dedicated parents who did not let their work take from their children, nor did they let their children take work from them.

Soon Jayne starred in “The Girl Can’t Help It,” and “The Wayward Bus,” as well as “Rock Hunter” and “Kiss Them For Me.” She began to perform at the Tropicana in Las Vegas and was thrilled to be able to have more personal live contact with her fans. She did cameos on television and was up for almost anything the fast lane of the world of entertainment could throw at her. Apparently she did not have room for Mickey anymore, and they divorced.

Jayne had once said, “I will never be satisfied. Life is one constant search for betterment for me.” Unfortunately neither she nor the world can be satisfied by a glowingly beautiful life cut so short. But se la vie, thus is the life of the 1950’s superstar.  Only the good die young, right?

God Bless Lili St. Cyr!

By: Hella Goode

“God bless Lili St. Cyr!” Janet belts out in the mock-burlesque musical number “Wild and Untamed Thing” in the movie Rocky Horror Picture Show. I tried for years to figure out what she was saying. Thanks, Pin Curl, for guiding me to my answer.

Mike Wallace interviewed the legendary burlesque striptease icon, Lili St. Cyr in October of 1957 expecting to meet a run of the mill, heart of gold, bad girl who is really a good girl who fell into an unfortunate lifestyle according to standards of the day. What he found was something entirely different. He met a brutally honest woman who had no qualms answering his questions of how she really felt about her profession and herself.

Lili St. Cyr, born Willis Marie Van Schaack, on June 18, 1918 in Minneapolis, MN into a family where she wasn’t necessarily wanted or needed. Her unstable childhood, although still producing an intelligent, beautiful and talented woman seemed to have left its mark on her self-esteem.

St. Cyr never really aspired to become a burlesque star. Lili was first hired as a dancer by accident. She accompanied her sister to an audition and was offered a job as well. She danced at venues such as Florentine Gardens and the Music Box, and began to concoct her own signature style of fanciful and creative numbers beyond simply removing clothing. Anyone can do that. St. Cyr created storylines in her routines that came to be what voyeurs expected from her, to be enticed, but also entertained. One such move was the ‘Flying G’ in which her G string would be caught by a fishing rod and pull her off stage. Some of her most well-known numbers were “Jungle Goddess,” “Persian Harem,” and “Ballet Dancer,” the latter in which she incorporated the years of ballet lessons from her youth.

Lili St. Cyr was photographer, Bruno Bernard’s muse, too. She was also in a few films, but usually as a striptease artist and was not granted acting roles that other actresses were offered. She was meant for live performance and continued to wow audiences with routines that included bubble baths and even a backward strip. In the backward strip, St. Cyr entered the stage barely covered and would provocatively redress herself.

This backward strip might have been symbolic of her struggles with her self-esteem and her career. Audiences applaud at the end of an act, so if they could applaud her for being herself and fully-clothed, she might begin to feel legitimized about her career again.

In the Wallace interview, after about 15 years in the scantily-clad spotlight, Lili admits she wasn’t proud of what she was doing for a living and was embarrassed by it. She expressed wanting to leave the business but needed to support herself. Sadly, she did not feel herself capable of doing anything else to make a living. St. Cyr, married at the time, wanted to quit her lusty life of burlesque as soon as she could be supported by her husband at the time. He was one of six she had in her lifetime.

Lili also admitted to not being part of any major religion and had no desire to bear children. In the 1950’s coming out with these statements instead of slopping frosting on her feelings to say that of course she one day dreamed of dancing around the kitchen surrounded by babies and attend church in her best every Sunday, was somewhat shocking.

These were not rash statements Ms. St. Cyr gave. They were truth. In Kelly DiNardo’s biographical book on the star, Gilded Lili, she reveals that she has had more than one abortion. Grief after an abortion as well as low-self esteem or failed marriages, or disconnect in her family life or all of these factors may have lead her to experiment with heroin. However, Lili herself had said that using was part of the Hollywood lifestyle and that some did it for attention from others, and others still to have a non-existent moment of privacy in the public eye.

She continued to battle with heroin years later and was seen less and less in public. She died January 29, 1999 in Los Angeles at the age of 80 (thus not a death likely caused by heroin, more likely from old age), but like a stained shroud, left her mark in burlesque herstory.

For the above mentioned Interview with Miss St. Cyr, please click here.

Women Air Force Service Pilots

By: Hella Goode

Although the term usually brings to mind images of pointy-headed individuals, WASP does not always refer to a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, but in this case, something way more exciting. WASP refers to the Women Air force Service Pilots who bravely served their country during World War II. When Rosie the Riveter was queen and women were taking the place of men displaced at war in factories, stores and offices, when supplies of men were drying up the government began looking for domestically licensed women to fill pilot’s seats.

Officially begun in September 1942, the program only lasted about two years. When the men began to return from war, they wanted their jobs back, the ladies were sent packing as if it had never happened. Even the dead were sent off without military monetary compensation for their funerals. Thirty-eight lost their lives in training or piloting orders. Those who survived were forever changed. They had collectively flown 78 different aircrafts and over 60,000,000 miles of flight time.

During their service the WASPs were given menial housework tasks when not occupied flying. They were usually not sent on major missions, but ferried planes back and forth, sometimes tested other planes, and were even used to prove to the men that the B-29 was safe to fly. One would think that men, thinking themselves so brave and strong, would be the ones wanting to prove this to the women, not the women proving it to the men.

Over 1,000 women graduated from the vigorous training of an Air Force Pilot during those two years. Trained in the sizzling heat of Sweetwater, Texas, they were made to be as tough if not tougher than the men.

It was an experience that united women who were from very different ‘walks of life’ who otherwise might not have associated with one another nor had a common springboard to bond. Most of the candidates were single, young women, however there were married women and a few mothers who were selected to apply for the task at hand. Although it would seem obvious that their families would worry, the ladies felt the same sense of duty that their male counterparts did when addressing whether or not they would go to war. To many at that time, each individual had an obligation to serve whether it be in the military, at the workplace, or in the home. Interestingly, although the gender divide was as large as the Grand Canyon in the military, the economic status divide narrowed for prospective WASPs. WASPs included rich heiresses as well as less well-to-do farm girls. Ironically, no matter how much money the heiresses brought forth, they could not have bought the chance to become a WASP. WASPs were recruited from a list of privately licensed female pilots who had a certain amount of flight hours. For once, economic status would not interfere and allow for a truly equal opportunity where all women, at least, were created equal.

They found and lived freely only to be forced to return to the forced roles of standard life in the 1940’s and 1950’s where despite all they had achieved, they were once again limited to the options of housewifery and motherhood. These of course, are not bad choices, but really were not much of a choice as there were no alternatives. They yearned for other opportunities. Some applied to become commercial pilots, but were instead offered positions as stewardesses. It was not their safety records, or lack of flight hours that kept them grounded with the airlines but the simple fact that they were women. What would other pilots or passengers think? Others taught new pilots or became crop dusters in order to be able to keep flying. Still others found their prior roles just as fulfilling in offices and at home. Most of these brave lady soldiers never got the chance to pilot again. It wouldn’t be until the year 1977 when women would get another chance to be invited to fly military aircraft and finally be recognized for it. This, however, was when the WASPs fought back and became known as the first true female military pilots.

Today, when only 316 of the original 1, 074 lady wonders remain, the WASPs and women in general still have many hurdles to overcome. It’s ironic that despite feeling as close to equal as many of us do in this day and age, that it wasn’t until our lifetime that these women were finally recognized by the military for their service. To date, despite even dogs who fought in Vietnam having a memorial monument before the WASP pilots do. Keep in mind these dogs served in a war that dated later than the one fought by the brave women of the WASP unit. One would think that if choosing between the contributions of these heroic women and the also heroic canine units, that women would win the respect of men first. The problem with that statement is that it involves thinking and what reasonably good excuse could there have been to prevent women from doing what the WASP did both before and after World War II? Inequality and discrimination are beyond reason and logic. Thankfully, there have always been those ready to challenge such biased beliefs and try to instill change. What I’m sure women would like is not to take the place of the dog as ‘Man’s Best Friend,’ but instead to become to be seen as his equally brilliant and beautiful counterpart.

What the WASPs do currently have in their honor are two smaller pieces of recognition. In the Arlington National Cemetery, there is a memorial display for the Women in Military Service for America, which features one section about the WASPs. In 1996, the Postal Service created a stamp for the WASPs with the image of one of their founding mothers, Jacqueline Cochran, also known as a Pioneer Pilot. She later became the first female pilot to break the sound barrier. Before 1996, wasn’t that still something worth commemorating?

To learn more about the WASP experience, visit the site of their training in Sweetwater, Texas, home of the WASP Museum, or read up on some of their more personal stories in such books as Flying For Her Country by Amy Goodpaster-Strebe, and Winning My Wings by Marion Stegeman Hodgson. For those who wish to help make a permanent memorial for the WASP, they can make donations to the Memorial Campaign at http://waspmuseum.org/donation-sub-nav-page/.

Editor’s note: Our very own Hella Goode has her very first book out (under her legal name, of course)! We couldn’t be more proud of her! You’ll check it out, won’t you? 101 Mexico City Travel Tips

Legends: Josephine Baker
Story: Hella Goode

When Frida Kahlo painted her double self-portrait, the Two Fridas, she couldn’t possibly have been imagining that she would meet another Frida one day that would enchant her so.

The other ‘Frida’ in the rumored love affair, was actually born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri to Carrie McDonald and drummer Eddie Carson, who hesitated very little in abandoning the new mother and child. She would later choose to go by her middle name, Josephine. After a series of family changes and a few short-lived marriages, she would become the legend known today as Josephine Baker, sometimes called ‘Black Venus,’ ‘Black Pearl,’ or ‘Creole Goddess.’ Josephine was renown worldwide for many of her passions, dancing, singing, mothering a menagerie of unusual pets, rallying for Civil Rights and setting the example for such adoption-happy celebs as Mia Farrow and Angelina Jolie, with her dozen adopted multicultural children which she lovingly referred to as the “Rainbow Tribe.”

One might ask, how did a black woman shoot to such fame and success at a time when racial restraints would not let her so much as sit in the front of the bus in the United States? Josephine mentions, “One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States…A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn’t stand it anymore…I felt liberated in Paris.”

Before departing for Paris, she had performed in the first all-black Broadway musical, Shuffle Along in 1922 at the age of 16 in New York. In 1925, she joined La Revue Nègre in Paris. Her performance with her partner, Joe Alex in the Danse Sauvage made her a star. She then took on La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater. Meanwhile in 1926 she recorded music for the first time ever. She briefly returned to New York to perform at Carnegie Hall, where she never before would have been accepted, but after her success in Europe and social growth in the Civil Rights movement, she was given a standing ovation.

In France, she starred in movies and on stage. Off stage she lead her life the way she saw fit. She became iconic, known for her exotic beauty, although she mocked it, saying her good feature was her legs, and the rest of her body was simply ‘amusing.’ She had presence that few other stars had.

Her films included:
La Sirène des Tropiques (1927)
Josephine plays a tropical beauty who aspires to dance in Paris. She was used to overacting for the live stage and thus gave an exaggerated performance which later haunted her.

Zouzou (1934)
Josephine portrays Zouzou, a circus performer in love with the man who plays her twin brother, but leaves her for another woman.

Princess Tam Tam (1935)
Josephine takes on the role of a primitive woman again, introduced to the French culture by a man.

The French Way (1945)
Josephine plays a cabaret performer named Zazu.

One can speculate as to why, despite being such a proponent of equal rights, she would accept roles as a ’savage,’ however, she made sure that she was not pigeonholed as such. She was civilized in all other aspects of her life, after, her favorite food was spaghetti.

Josephine never left the United States behind completely. She kept vigilant watch over the events going on in the Civil Rights movement while enjoying her success in France. By the time she had amped her popularity in film and on stage in Europe, becoming one of the best if not, the highest paid performer of her time and ranking amongst the most photographed women in the world, she knew she had a new mission, to aid in the fight for Civil Rights in the United States. She was invited to speak at the 1963 march on Washington DC, where Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous speech still runs shivers down the spines of those who hear it. “Until the March on Washington,” Josephine stated, “I always had this little feeling in my stomach. I was always afraid. I couldn’t meet white American people. I didn’t want to be around them. But now that little gnawing feeling is gone. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that everything is right now.” Josephine continued to help the cause by refusing to perform or appear in places that did not allow blacks to enter or refused them seating. She was very public about her stance on equality, even when it meant open and public media battles.

How ironic for the spirit of political activism to come from the woman most known for the image of the costume she wore for the Danse Banane. It was nothing more than about a dozen bananas strewn together to make a less than skimpy skirt. Josephine gave new meaning to many things, but she topped the sweet cake by showing us what Chiquita Bananas really meant with this one. She wasn’t recognized for being very modest in her costumes, but often wore revealing and sensual digs, performing and posing topless as well, which was not nearly as scandalous in France in the 1920’s and 1930’s as it was in the United States. It took until the 1950’s in Las Vegas for American girls and venues to accept the daring challenge of having topless showgirls. She lit up the venue no matter what she did, taken over by the thrill of the stage. … “I improvised, crazed by the music… Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone,” she said.

She died at the age of 69 on April 12, 1975 in Paris, France of cerebral hemorrhage, a recognized contributor to the victory of World War II on the French side, earning her a 21-gun salute, an American Civil Rights activist, the cause of the contagious jazz bug in Europe, amongst other achievements including giving hope to those who had none. She was honored with the presence of over 20,000 people in her funeral procession and status as a stage legend, inspiring women of her time and future generations to not let beautiful and bold be determined by the opinion of the masses, but to simply bleed it from the inside out.

For more: http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/

By: Hella Goode

Maybe my next piece should be the history of gossip and misconceptions. It appears that Amelia Bloomer is not the inventor of bloomers. I repeat, Amelia Bloomer did not invent Bloomers. A woman named Elizabeth Smith Miller did in the late 1840’s to early 1850’s. So then why does Amelia Bloomer get all the credit?

Amelia Bloomer did not create the first pair of bloomers, but she does get credit for publicizing them and making this free-legged step toward comfortable women’s clothing more available to ladies. Today we choose to wear dresses, but in Bloomer’s time, there was no other choice if one wanted to be considered a lady. Really the only alternative to being a ‘lady’ was to be considered a whore, regardless of a woman’s actual value or virtue. Such scandalous debate on women’s behavior became tied to Amelia’s name, most likely due to her writings for the feminist-reform magazine, Lily, referred to as ‘bloomerism.’ What is interesting is that the most concern was taken for middle-class women. After all, lower class women were a lost cause and upper class women were, well, classy and untouchable, above the influence of such immorality. Or so it was thought.

Stranger also, was that, what today is considered more scandalous, women not wearing any undergarments at all, was the norm before bloomers. They were so covered in ‘overgarments’ that there really was no need for the invention of panties until later.

The first bloomers, full-length puffy pants that were worn under knee-length skirts, were likely inspired by designs of the Eastern world. Women of the Orient were already wearing pants, some of which are similar to belly dancing traditional ‘harem’ pants and other styles out of Turkey. Yet these women were not being pestered for suddenly having the opportunities to move freely in their clothing such as the men, or not carry around 30 or more pounds of extra weight with each day’s dress. It seemed obvious that women’s dress was limiting for a reason, and it was to keep them in their place. 

Although American women everywhere expressed their desires for more rights such as the right to vote, the right to property ownership, and to divorce, they worried that dressing too radically might jeopardize their other battles and be too much of a distraction from their main causes. So, many chose to keep wearing the traditional dress.

In the midst of this fight, bicycles were becoming a popular mode of transportation. This was disturbing to many as it would allow women the ability to find their way around. Who knows where they might end up and under what influence? They also worried that the physicality of the bicycle would lead women to become lesbians or even to masturbate. Many thought they were better off trapped in their dresses.

Whoever would have guessed that the straw that broke the camel’s back (who was wearing harem pants) for resistors would be upper class women who embraced this new fashion in order to be able to use the bicycle, even Queen Victoria herself. Aha, so when royalty does it, it becomes fashionable. Hear this, modern day royalty, give us something new…

By: Hella Goode

Perfumes have been around since the development of recreation and civilization and not just the mere search for food, sex, and shelter. And, thank goodness, we took the time do take care of our odor needs. Over the centuries people have made taking a bath a more frequent activity, but this was not always the case. Imagine au natural smelling au natural….it wouldn’t likely smell pretty.

Surprisingly, it is not the French who began the perfume industry. Perfume, in its most basic form-incense and other natural fragrances have been used since and before Biblical times. Frankincense was even brought to baby Jesus, for Christ’s sake. Since ancient time in the Americas, native cultures have used the fragrant smoke of different herbs and wood to wash and perfume the souls of others.

However, it might surprise you that the Egyptians were the real perfume freaks, even entombing their dead with perfume ready for the afterlife. They used a wide variety of scents, mostly from oils and used decorative bottles to encase them. The Romans picked up on the perfuming habit through their visits to Egypt and brought their discovery back to Europe where it became custom for both Romans and Greeks. They used them both before and after baths. Through trade, war, and recreational travel, the use of perfume spread, wafting behind travelers. Then, an Arab chemist, who caught wind of the new fad, developed a distillation technique for extracting oils from plants and did it so well, that many still use his techniques today.

The French did get hold of perfumes, as we well know, and went a bit crazy with them, especially amongst the upper class. With Louis XV, perfumes were even used on clothing. The French were so crazy about perfumes that they incorporated these scents into their culture and maintain their reputation as one of the world’s top perfume industry leaders.

Today celebrities have taken over the perfume market. Some have done it well and others have just watered down another form of art. For me, just like any other taste (or do I mean smell), it really is what the nose knows.