Scented Quote of the Day, from Eugene Rimmel:
A Noble Lady of Venice by Lord Frederick Leighton, ca. 1865, Leighton House Museum and Gallery"...I shall venture to offer to ladies a few words of advice on the choice of their perfumes and cosmetics. I feel that this is delicate ground, but I shall endeavour to let my remarks be of a purely general character.
The selection of a perfume is entirely a matter of taste, and I should no more presume to dictate to a lady which scent she should choose, than I would to an epicure what wine he is to drink ; ...
yet, I may say to the nervous : use simple extracts of flowers, which can never hurt you, in preference to compounds, which generally contain musk and other ingredients likely to affect the head. Above all, avoid strong, coarse perfumes : and remember, that if a woman's temper may be told from her handwriting, her good taste and good breeding may as easily be ascertained by the perfume she uses. Whilst a lady charms with the delicate ethereal fragrance she sheds around her, aspiring vulgarity will as surely betray itself by a mouchoir redolent of common perfumes.
In The Book of Perfumes, 1865.
