#perfumery

Vintage perfume vessels & fragrance bottles from history and across civilizations.

For thousands of years, humanity has shaped the materials around the fragrant essences of herbal plants to keep them contained. In ancient workshops, they kneaded and fired clay. Potters in Greece and Rhodes molded terracotta into the shapes of owls, frogs, and lion heads. Along the Mediterranean's southern shores, Egyptian artisans crafted faience perfume bottles shaped like hedgehogs. In the 13th century BC, Nefertari's ointments were kept in round boxes with wood details.

During the Roman era, glassmaking changed production methods. Artisans blew molten sand over a fire to design vials shaped like fish and dates. They engraved delicate white figures onto blue glass. In a Pompeii mural, we see a woman carefully pouring liquid from one of these slender bottles. Over time, perfume vessels weren't just tabletop objects anymore. In 18th-century Europe, they were attached directly to clothing. English and German craftsmen worked silver and gold into flasks shaped like hearts, daggers, and skulls. Women tied them to their waists with metal chains.

i love perfume and i love ethel cain and i love making these

May is objectively the best month to be alive in Poland and I intend to smell like May whole year round.