A package arrived yesterday including a bottle of this perfume. Throughout my childhood, I remember a bottle of 4711 always sat on her dresser. The scent is so light that it's hardly there yet is inevitably a nostalgic one for me. Notes of: lemon, orange, rose, sandalwood.
An 89 year old German great-uncle of mine mails her bottles of this stuff in his packages (he also sends homemade jam sometimes.)
I didn't realize the exact history of this two hundred year old perfume until this afternoon; the name of course comes from the address in the village (Cologne, France) where it was manufactured. During the Great War, the German military distributed bottles of 4711 to submarine sailors to help them cope with the inevitable olfactory mess that would arise from a group of men caught in close quarters with no shower facilities. Apparently most of them just dealt with the stink and mailed the bottles to lady loves back home.
Huh, what a cool history for a perfume. It sounds like it must smell good too, I really love sandalwood.
ReplyDeleteIt smells wonderful. I'm beginning to accept that sandalwood, incense or musk is inevitably a note in almost every perfume I like... though I'm generally drawn to floral citrusy scents.
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