Glass bottles filled with lovely scents, each promising a dream, promoted through the well-oiled marketing machinery of large cosmetics companies.

Fragrance. Perfume. Women dousing themselves so that they smell like flowers. Men too wearing scents as part of social etiquette.

Perfumes have been around for ages. Even before the arrival of modern day perfumes, mankind has been distilling the essences of plant to create essential oils. Both for their medicinal purposes and for perfumery. Aromatherapists and naturopaths would select essential oils based on their medicinal properties to treat their patients. Old world perfumers would mix essential oils with varying notes to create a pleasing fragrance for their clients.

The fragrance extracted from the orange blossom was used on its own by princess Neroli as her signature scent — she had her gloves perfumed with orange blossoms, hence the essential oil extracted from the orange blossom is named after her.

On its own, Neroli has a sweet, candied fragrance. Soft and feminine. Elegant. Ladylike. A bottle of neroli essential oil at 3% dilution makes an affordable and practical fragrance if you like floral scents.

Feminine or not, neroli is one of the notes used to make the old world eau de cologne worn by well-to-do gentlemen. The other notes are lavender and lemon. Petitgrain is its more affordable sister.