tldr;
Perfume embodies the essence of a lindy gift: it is timeless, universally appreciated, and imbued with deep personal and cultural significance. Its enduring charm and ability to create lasting memories make it an exceptional gift that transcends fleeting trends, ensuring it will continue to be cherished for generations to come.
For most of human history, perfume has been a wide category of spices, herbs, salves or aromatic liquids providing a pleasant scent. Relative to today, there was a lot greater need for perfumes to cover unpleasant scents. This made perfume very high utility and opened the door for the most exotic scents and effective concoctions created by chemists to be quite the luxury gift.
Perfumes have a long track record of use as gifts. One of the most discussed gifts of all time was a perfume, the wise men bringing baby Jesus frankincense and myrrh. Flowers might be the most popular single item to gift and while the human eye is drawn to the bright colors, what's the first thing someone does when receiving the gift? A slight lean in, closing your eyes to focus your senses, and a big breath through the nose to take in the scent. Just like Tapputi, one of the first recorded chemists, who also distilled flowers into perfume in 2000 BCE.
There's a long track record of use through many cultures but perfumes have taken on a new level of symbolic importance over the last 200 years. The department store era of perfumes of the mid 19th century and the creation of luxury lines like Chanel and Dior boosted the cultural relevance of perfumes from nice utility to beautiful gift.
Perfume makes a great gift. You can acquire a variety of fragrances curated for the recipient. Perfume engages the sense of smell, which connects deeply to our memories. A fragrance can evoke powerful recollections and create lasting associations, what a lovely byproduct of showing you care with a gift.
help me find references to perfume gifts in literature, movies, historical records or more; dm on twitter @jakevf