In a quiet Toledo shed in the late 1880s, country doctor Allen DeVilbiss tinkered with a problem: how to spray treatments into his patients’ throats without cotton swabs. The device he built would eventually find its way onto every dressing table in America — and reshape the way the world wore perfume.

This month on The Scent Archive, we trace the strange journey of the atomizer from medical instrument to luxury object: from French pharmacies to Parisian perfumeries, from a wooden shed in Ohio to Art Deco glass empires, from doctor’s bag to dressing table. Along the way: the cholera epidemic that made spraying feel sanitary, the Venturi effect that made it possible, and the visionary son who transformed his father’s invention into a cultural phenomenon.

Allen DeVilbiss didn’t invent the atomizer. He didn’t even mass-produce the first one. What he and his son Thomas built was something arguably more consequential: the idea that every woman deserved one.

In this episode

• The Latin roots of “perfume” (per fumum — through smoke) and why fragrance was burned long before it was sprayed

• The 1832 cholera epidemic and France’s hygiene obsession

• The Venturi effect and the physics of mist

• French vaporisateur makers — Rimmel, Legrand, Gache — and the ecosystem DeVilbiss entered

• The Toledo shed where it all began

• Thomas DeVilbiss and the leap from medical tool to luxury perfumizer

• A million perfumizers a year by the 1920s

• The Art Deco empire (and the company basketball team called The Sprays)

Sources & further reading

• Érika Wicky, “Pschitt!: A Cultural History of the Perfume Vaporizer,” Dix-Neuf 28, no. 3–4 (2024): 298–316. DOI: 10.1080/14787318.2025.2468558.

• Marti DeGraaf, DeVilbiss Perfume Bottles and Their Glass Company Suppliers, 1907 to 1968 (Hardcover, October 28, 2014).

• Thomas Dills DeVilbiss, History of the DeVilbiss Family (1927)

• Allen DeVilbiss, U.S. Patent 378,357 (Feb. 21, 1888)

• Thomas A. DeVilbiss, U.S. Patent 938,648 (Nov. 2, 1909)

• BGSU DeVilbiss archives

Next month

The Parisian orphan who built the most famous perfume house in the world.

On March 6, 1899, a flock of peacocks on a Waikīkī estate began to wail so loudly that people across the island heard them and knew. Their keeper had just died. She was twenty-three years old, and she was supposed to be queen.

This episode follows the story of Princess Ka'iulani — the last Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Hawaii — from the fragrant gardens of her childhood home at 'Āinahau to the halls of the US Capitol, where she fought alone for her people's independence. Along the way, we explore the flowers at the heart of her story: pikake, the jasmine sambac she named after her beloved peacocks, and gardenia, her mother's flower — and what happened to both when the monarchy was gone.

In this episode:

The rise and fall of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani

The life of Princess Ka'iulani: royal heir, activist, and one of history's most overlooked figures

The pikake flower: its Hawaiian origins, olfactive profile, and why jasmine sambac is one of perfumery's most iconic notes

The cultural significance of the lei — and what pikake and gardenia meant in Hawaiian tradition

The complicated legacy of Hawaiian souvenir perfume, including Royal Hawaiian Perfumes (est. 1946)

If you love narrative history, royal biography, fragrance deep-dives, or podcasts like Noble Blood or Tasting History — this one's for you.

🌸 National Fragrance Day offer: 25% off everything at Immortal Perfumes through April 1, 2026. Use code ARCHIVE at checkout. 🛍️ Shop: immortalperfumes.com 🎙️ More about the podcast: scentarchivepod.com 📸 Instagram & TikTok: @immortalperfumes

📷 Photos of Ka'iulani's funeral, including her casket lying in state at 'Āinahau, are linked below.

Sources & Further Reading

Linnéa, Sharon. Princess Ka'iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 1999.

Webb, Nancy, and Jean Francis Webb. Ka'iulani: Crown Princess of Hawai'i. Honolulu: Mutual Publishing, 1998.

de Silva, Kīhei. "Lei Kiele." Ka'iwakīloumoku Hawaiian Cultural Center, Kamehameha Schools. https://kaiwakiloumoku.ksbe.edu/article/mele-lei-kiele

Leonhardt, Kenneth W., and Glenn I. Teves. "Pikake: A Fragrant-Flowered Plant for Landscapes and Lei Production." College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, April 2002. https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/of-29.pdf

Fullard-Leo, Leslie. Oral history interview, June 12, 1986. University of Hawaiʻi oral history project.

"The Cleghorn: History at Its Base." Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 5, 1964.

"Gardenias Didn't Bloom for 2 Years After Princess' Death." Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 5, 1952.

"Princess Ka'iulani Special Edition." Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 13, 1899.

"Fairy." Images of Old Hawaiʻi. https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/fairy/

"How a 19th-Century Scot Married Into Hawaii's Last Royal Family." The Scotsman. https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/how-a-19th-century-scot-married-into-hawaiis-last-royal-family-4810013

The Scent Archive is a monthly podcast and companion piece to Immortal Perfumes, a Seattle-based literary micro-perfumery specializing in historically inspired handmade fragrances. Each episode, host and perfumer JT Siems follows her nose to uncover the hidden histories of the perfumed past.

Storical is becoming something new.

Same voice. Same obsession with the past. But from here on, every story runs through scent — because scent is the detail historians keep leaving out, and it changes everything.

The Scent Archive launches on National Fragrance Day, March 21st. Once a month, a deep dive into a historical figure, an event, an object — and the scent running through it like a hidden thread. From the hull of the Titanic to the French Resistance, from royal courts to poisoners who used perfume as a weapon.

The first episode is about a Hawaiian princess, the peacocks she adored, and why the most delicate flower in Hawaiian perfumery carries a bird's name.

I'll see you in the archive.