Modern perfume began when chemists learned to make aromatic molecules in the laboratory in the second half of the nineteenth century. Coumarin, with its hay-like sweetness, and vanillin, the main molecule of vanilla, were among the first to be used in perfume. Houbigant’s Fougère Royale (1882) and Guerlain’s Jicky (1889) are the examples most often cited of perfumes that used them in new, abstract ways. Over the next century, aldehydes, synthetic musks, new florals and modern woods gave perfumers effects nature could not provide and created the styles we wear today.

Before synthetics

For most of history, perfumers worked only with natural materials — flowers, peels, woods, resins and a few animal materials. These are rich and complex, but they set limits: some flowers yield no usable extract, many materials were scarce and costly, and every harvest differed. See A Short History of Perfume.

The first molecules

Nineteenth-century chemists began to identify the molecules responsible for natural smells and to make them. Two early ones mattered especially:

  • Coumarin — sweet, hay-like, almond-like, found in tonka beans and cut grass — first made in the laboratory in the 1860s.
  • Vanillin — the main aromatic molecule of vanilla — made synthetically from 1874, when the chemists Wilhelm Haarmann and Ferdinand Tiemann patented a process in Germany; production from clove oil followed soon after.

Ionones, with their soft violet scent, followed in the 1890s. See What Does Powdery Mean in Perfume? and Vanilla in Perfume.

The first modern perfumes

Fougère Royale, composed by Paul Parquet for Houbigant in 1882, used coumarin to create an imagined fern-like scent with no natural model. It gave its name to the fougère family. See What Is a Fougère Fragrance?.

Jicky, by Guerlain in 1889, combined natural materials with coumarin and vanillin in a composition many historians regard as one of the first modern perfumes — abstract rather than a portrait of a flower.

Sources disagree on which perfume was the "first" to use a synthetic, and some dates are disputed; what they agree on is that these perfumes marked a turning point.

Synthetic molecules did not replace nature. They gave perfumers words nature had never spoken.

The twentieth century

  • Aldehydes — sparkling, waxy, soapy molecules — gave rise to the bright aldehydic florals of the early twentieth century.
  • Synthetic musks replaced natural musk from the musk deer and created the clean, soft base of countless perfumes and laundry products. See What Is Musk in Perfume?.
  • New floral molecules made notes such as lily of the valley possible and gave jasmine its airy, transparent modern form. See Jasmine in Perfume.
  • Marine and ozonic molecules created the aquatic fragrances popular from the 1990s. See Fresh Fragrances.
  • Modern woods and ambery molecules created the radiant, transparent woods behind many of today’s skin scents. See What Is a Skin Scent?.

What synthetics changed

  1. New styles — whole families, such as the fougère and the aquatic, depend on them.
  2. Consistency — the same molecule smells the same every time.
  3. Access — affordable perfume became possible for many more people.
  4. Protection — synthetic alternatives reduced reliance on animal materials and scarce natural sources.

Captive molecules

Fragrance companies sometimes keep newly created molecules for their own perfumers for a period, protected by patents — so-called captive molecules. They are one way houses create distinctive signatures. RUŌOD Lab explains them for perfumers in Captive Fragrance Molecules.

Are synthetics "chemicals"?

Every perfume material, natural or synthetic, is made of chemicals — molecules. Natural and synthetic materials are subject to the same safety standards. See Is Natural Perfume Better Than Synthetic?.

Common questions

What was the first synthetic perfume ingredient?

Several early molecules have claims depending on how "first" is defined; coumarin and vanillin are the most often cited in perfume history.

Do most perfumes contain synthetics?

Most modern perfumes combine natural and synthetic materials.

Why did synthetics make perfume cheaper?

Because molecules made in a laboratory can be produced consistently and in quantity, unlike many costly natural materials.

Further reading

For how chemists and perfumers think about aroma molecules, see RUŌOD Lab’s Perfume Chemistry Basics, and for two of the most important twentieth-century synthetics, its articles on aldehydes in perfumery and coumarin in perfumery.