When Francis Kurkdjian, one of France's premier perfumers, set out to re-create a fragrance of Marie Antoinette, his greatest fear was that it would stink.
After all, he reasoned, the 21st-century nose might have little tolerance for the potent potions that the famous queen and her royal court used to mask the smells of their opulent but odiferous 18th-century environs at the Chateau de Versailles.
— from an article in today's Washington Post about Sillage de la Reine, Kurkdjian's reformulation of a perfume Marie Antoinette "could have worn".
My mom sweetly clipped this article and saved it for me :). I guess my scent addiction isn't as hidden as I thought it was.
I am infatuated with the idea of recreating historical scents or scents that would've had a place in history. It's like reliving someone else's memories–amazing stuff.
I like the idea too, and even when, as here, it is just sort of a “guess” of what someone would have worn.