Farina

Farina, the original Eau de Cologne since 1709

Eau de Cologne has an inventor. Giovanni Maria Farina was born in 1685 in Santa Maria Maggiore, a village in Piedmont, and in the early 18th century joined the trading house his family had founded in Cologne in 1709. He developed a scented water unlike anything worn at the time. The perfumes of the day were heavy, laden with musk and amber. His was light and fresh, built on citrus: bergamot, lemon, orange and citron, with neroli and a few aromatic herbs.

In a letter to his brother dated 1708, he wrote that it reminded him of a spring morning in Italy, with the scent of mountain daffodils and orange blossom after the rain. He named it after his adopted city: Eau de Cologne.

Success came quickly. Over the course of the 18th century, Farina supplied most of the courts of Europe, and Voltaire and Goethe were among its customers. The name was copied so widely that it came to describe a whole family of fragrances. To set itself apart from imitators, the house took to stating its address, “Farina gegenüber”, meaning “Farina opposite”: opposite Jülichs-Platz, the square where it has been based since 1723. It also adopted an emblem, the red tulip, which still appears on the bottles.

More than three centuries later, Farina is still at the same address and still owned by the same family, now in its eighth generation. It is the oldest perfume factory in the world still in operation. The Eau de Cologne is made there to the original formula, whose exact composition remains confidential.

A fresh, discreet scent, worn at any age, by men and women alike.