The Bewildered Brit

In 1808 when Robert I. Murray formulated Florida Water he thought he was creating one of the first colognes produced in America. He didn't realize that he was also creating the Voodoo equivalent of holy water.

Giovanni Maria Farina, an Italian living in Germany had created Eau de Cologne ("Water of Cologne", named after the city he lived in) in 1709. What Farina had done was monumental: he had created a complex scent from a whole array of single notes. The bright citrus scent was designed to be worn by either a man or a woman as a scent or skin toner.

Robert Murray—a perfumer in New York City—saw a market for an American-made cologne and he set to work. The scent he created was quite distinct from Farina's original, or any other, early Eau de Cologne.

They did share several features in common, though. As with all pre-modern perfumes, the scent is fairly short-lived. After thirty minutes or so, it dies down to a gentle "clean" or "refreshing" scent. Secondly, it was designed for women as well as men. Finally, while not being a copy of Farina's Eau de Cologne, it shared the same floral, citrus notes.

The product you can buy today is almost unchanged since 1808. The formula is the same and the label is identical to the original save a few concessions to the modern world, such as the barcode.

The label is fascinating. In the center is a drawing of the Fountain of Youth, said to be in the state of Florida (hence the name of the cologne). In the bottom left a medieval lady sits with a songbird perched on her arm, while on the other side a troubadour serenades her.

Florida Water was hugely popular in the nineteenth century; its gentle, inoffensive scent being seen as appropriate for anybody and any occasion. It even became popular as an aftershave: its relative cheapness combined with a high alcohol content and widely-loved smell made it an ideal choice for barbers across the country.

When the twentieth century came around, however, Florida Water fell increasingly out of favor. The times had changed. Women and men were allowed to wear stronger and more gendered scents. Florida Water's days could have been numbered.

I'm not sure how it came to be associated with the religions of Voodoo, Hoodoo and Santería, but its here that Florida Water found its second—longer lived—life. Perhaps the connection came about because of its ubiquity in the 1900s, perhaps it was its association with the Fountain of Youth, or perhaps it was because there had been a Florida Water factory in Havana, Cuba and so was widely available in the Caribbean and southern coastal states of the USA.

Whatever the case, Florida Water has a long tradition in those religions. Here's Catherine Yronwode on its use in Hoodoo:

[Florida Water is] widely used in rituals of home protection and spiritual cleaning, to scent bowls of water set out for the spirits of the dead, as a basis for making an ink-dyed scrying water, and for other ritual and cosmetic purposes among people of African-diaspora descent in the United States and the Caribbean.

It is used in Voodoo, Hoodoo and Santería as an equivalent to Holy Water. Florida Water purifies and protects. It is a part of a variety of spells which can remove negativity or ward off evil spirits. In all, it's extremely useful and important stuff.

While Florida Water has fallen into obscurity for most of the population, it still plays a key role in the lives of many. What an incredible journey Florida Water has taken over the last 200 years.

I just had to get hold of a bottle to see what all the fuss was about! As we don't really know a whole lot about Voodoo, Natalie and I decided that we'd just test it out as a cologne.

The packaging is really beautiful, very olde worlde. It comes as a bit of a shock to find that the bottle is actually plastic!

And then, when twist off the cap you're greeted with... well, a rather nasty smell actually! In my experience, this is a problem with all scented products being stored in plastic bottles: they tend to react with the plastic and smell a bit funny. As soon as you get the product out of the bottle and onto your skin, the true cologne smell comes through.

So, what's it like? It's actually quite unlike the traditional colognes from Cologne. While they all share a fresh citrus zing and a bright, clean drydown. Florida Water has stronger floral topnotes while the citrus dies down pretty quickly.

Interestingly, it reminds me of the men's colognes produced in Britain at the time: they all have a rather sweet, powdery drydown. I guess it was considered quite masculine at the time, but nowadays seems rather sweet.

Florida Water is truly fascinating stuff, and it's a window into what the United States would have smelled like 200 years ago. Which is pretty cool when you think about it.

Florida Water Rating
Natalie: 6/10
Richard: 6/10

Text and photographs: Richard Peevers