The 3,500-year-old filigree flacon bears the name of Hatshepsut, an 18th-dynasty pharaoh who ruled from around 1479 BC.
 
Michael Hoveler-Muller, the museum's curator, said: "The desiccated residues of a fluid can be clearly discerned in the x-ray photographs... Our pharmacologists are now going to analyze this sediment".
 
"We think it probable that one constituent was incense - the scent of the gods."
 
He said that Hatshepsut used perfume to demonstrate her power.

First, I am not a fan of Britney Spears perfume, generally speaking. I will admit that I quite like her very first one, Curious, but that's an exception. Curious is a light, white floral blend (with unfortunately weak staying power, at least on me). The rest of the Britney Spears fragrances are sweet fruity sweet floral sticky sweet, pretty much.

Fantasy is one I like the least. On me, it smells like cupcakes in a lolly shop, with a syrupy undertone. Seriously way, way too sweet. Yuck. I will admit that I let my daughters wear it, though (I had some in stock that I couldn't move no matter what I did, so I gave it to my kids). My daughters are currently ages nine and seven, and it's appropriate for a little girl to smell sticky sweet like lollies and cupcakes.

Midnight Fantasy is, in my opinion, actually worse. It's got a sort of fake grape thing going on. I don't mean actual grapes, but that yucky bright purple fake grape flavour you find in certain lollies and sticky drinks. To me, Midnight Fantasy comes on like fake grape cough syrup, and doesn't get any better as it develops. Double yuck.

Believe is also a fruity floral, though not quite as sticky sweet as Fantasy and Midnight Fantasy (can't figure out why they made it green; it's not a "green" fragrance at all). Believe isn't too offensive to my nose, and it's okay on my skin, but it's got very little character and personality (I will refrain from making a joke about Britney here, but you can assume I thought of one).

And that all being said, today I tried Hidden Fantasy, mostly because I heard it had a cherry note and I quite like cherries, even though I was expecting cherry cough syrup. I will say right now I was pleasantly surprised. Hidden Fantasy is, so far, the best of the Fantasy line, at least to my personal reckoning.

It is, of course, a fruity floral (surprise!). It does have the promised cherry note (or a combination that has a cherry accord, anyway). Happily, the sweetness of this perfume is tempered with citrus, which combines to cut the syrupy quality (sweet orange, tangerine, and grapefruit blossom, to be precise).

After the top notes fade, the heart is mostly floral, but it's a sweet floral, with verbena, jasmine, stargazer lily, and sweet Napolitano cake, because, of course, everyone wants to smell like fruit, cake and flowers. Again, I didn't find this too sweet, and the cake is a nice almond-cherry-vanilla type of mood scent. I actually found it pleasant.

The base notes are pretty standard and unremarkable, including vanilla bean, jacaranda wood, fluid sandalwood and amber. Basically, the base is solid, sweet, and nothing you haven't smelled before (though I will admit, I liked the amber note, which lingered quite a while, if very close to the skin).

Overall, I think I'd say this is an acceptable perfume. I'm very unlikely to buy it or wear it, but I imagine it'll be a hit. It's better than the previous Fantasy offerings, in my opinion, and if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to wear one of the Britney Spears fragrances but forbade me to choose Curious, I'd pick this one. Fortunately, that's extremely unlikely to happen.

Just as an afterthought, if you're looking for a somewhat sweet fragrance with a cherryish note (okay, it's actually heliotrope, but heliotrope has a definite "cherry pie" accord, which is why it's called the cherry pie plant, go on and look it up), go for Dior Dolce Vita. It's a much better fragrance, has excellent lasting power, and wouldn't you rather say you're wearing Dior than say you're wearing Britney Spears? I know I would.

The first thing you should know about olfactory works of art -- scents made by artists who work not in paint or clay but in the medium of scent -- is their rare, visceral beauty. Art scents are the Lucian Freuds, Mirós and, at times, Damien Hirsts of the trade. The raw materials used by the luxury fragrance brands to concoct perfumes are harnessed here by artists to construct serious aesthetic work, work that conveys vision and emotion on an invisible canvas. The inventiveness poured into these creations reverberates not against our retinas or eardrums but our nasal epithelia. Which is the second most astonishing thing about scent art -- the degree to which museums essentially ignore it. .

Fascinating article on olfactory works of art at the New York Times (note: You may need to sign up for a free account to view the article; I've had an account with the NYT for so long that I just keep a permanent cookie on the hard drive and almost never need to log in to view their articles, though. It's worth signing up if you haven't already.)

Just a little article I found amusing. I don't necessarily agree with all of the writer's opinions, but, hey, it's a fun read: Seriously Stupid Celeb Perfume Names

Apparently, GenkiWear, LLC is developing a trio of fragrances celebrating classic Star Trek. "Tiberius," "Pon Farr" and "Red Shirt" fragrances will be available in stores in the spring.

I like the names (yes, I am a Star Trek fan, in case you wondered), but I really have to wonder about the licensing of the Star Trek name to fragrances (and other quite improbable schemes; see link above).

What's the science behind a sublime perfume? With charm and precision, biophysicist Luca Turin explains the molecular makeup -- and the art -- of a scent.

I like the frangipani flower, and not just for its luscious scent. I like that it's a flower named after a person, and one who was responsible for dissolving fragrance absolu in alcohol, thus totally revolutionising the craft of perfume making.

So today I'm trying out Ormonde Jayne's Frangipani. My first reaction is a great big WOW. The top notes are absolutely delicious on my skin. For a while I almost felt like licking my wrist because the scent was that scrumptious. The top notes are linden blossom, magnolia flower, lime peel, and boy does that lime work with the florals. Absolutely enticing, at least to my nose. Fresh and definitely tropical. Yummy.

The heart notes are white frangipani, jasmine, rose, and tuberose absolutes, water lily, plum, and green orchid oil. I have to say, I'm not the biggest fan of tuberose. I have experienced perfumes that use it well, however, and this is one of them. I often find tuberose to be pretty overwhelming. That's not the case with this scent, though. In fact, the heart notes combine to have an almost gardenia-like effect on my skin. It's quite beautiful, and certainly floral-tropical. Gorgeous.

The beautiful heart notes give way after a reasonable length of time to the base of amber, musk, cedar, and French vanilla abolute. I'm not a big "vanilla" fan (as many of my reviews have noted), but the vanilla here is a creamy, subtle part of the base, so it's not too overpowering. In fact, the thing I detect the most is the amber, which suits my sensibility fairly well (I love a nice amber note). The musk is very soft, and, in fact, I find the base generally quite subtle, and very close to the skin.

My overall reaction to this perfume is that it is, like all of the other Ormonde Jayne fragrances I've tried so far, exceptionally well-crafted and elegant. I'm a big fan of florals, so this fragrance really works for me, and it works on me, as well. I get pretty tired of fruity florals, but in this fragrance, the fruity notes are a nice addition, not too sweet or too fruity. They add a nice splash of freshness in the top notes, and the plum in the heart notes just nicely rounds out the blend.

This is a floral fragrance I could and very well might add to my permanent perfume wardrobe. That's how much I like it.

Ormonde Jayne describes this perfume as a "dark, spicy oriental", and it certainly is that. Definitely dark, almost moody, and, well, it's certainly spicy. And while I will say that this fragrance is beautifully crafted and elegantly balanced, it just doesn't suit me very well.

I was completely overwhelmed by the top notes, and not in a good way. The top notes are davana, pink pepper, coriander seed, and bergamot, but I can barely detect the bergamot, and the pink pepper is just barely noticible on my skin. Mostly I am overwhelmed by the coriander and davana, and my reaction to it is... phew. If I wasn't well familiar with the development of fragrances, I might have been tempted to go and wash it off, that's how overwhelming I found it.

Once the heart notes start to develop, though, the fragrance is much more pleasant on my skin and to my olfactory senses. Iris, sambac absolute, pimento berries, and bay are the middle notes of this fragrance, quite an unusual combination (something I do appreciate in any perfume). The first heart note I could really detect was, unsurprisingly, the iris, but the bay was actually quite interestingly notable, as well. I have to admit, I don't know what pimento berries smell like, so it's hard to say what effect they have on the blend, but I do admit that I find the heart of this fragrance intriguing, and certainly more pleasant than the overwhelming top notes.

I do like the base in this very much, and, happily, they last a good long while. The notes are incense, patchouli, myrrh, Chinese cedar, and gaiac. I'd actually love to get incense that smells like this. It's sufficiently mysterious and just spicy enough without being too over the top. Very well done.

Unfortunately, for me the perfume doesn't really work, and that makes me a little sad, because I'm always interested in a well-crafted perfume with a unique character. You definitely won't smell like everyone else if you're wearing Orris Noir! I certainly recommend giving this a test run if you're interested in a well-crafted, moody oriental.