I adore perfumes—not just the experience of wearing them but also the deep dive into fragrance compositions, perfumer, and the art behind scents. Like many fragrance aficionados, I’ve relied on sites like Fragrantica and others to explore the world of perfumes. While these platforms are invaluable, I’ve often felt that they could use a more contemporary touch—both in design and functionality.

As time passes, the idea of building my version from scratch has become more than just a dream. I see this as a unique opportunity to combine my passion for fragrances with my professional development. This project will allow me to explore and master several technical concepts while creating something that truly aligns with my vision.

With my amazing ability to overthink not much time passed until I soon found out how overwhelming it can be when you put on your shoulders to make the technical decisions that otherwise an entire team would discuss, where we would have a senior reference to guide us on the right path.

After freaking out a little bit I decided to do something concrete to calm me down and put to good use the advice of a dear professor of mine. Instead of diving headfirst to try and solve the problem, let’s stop to understand all the core aspects of the problem and design a good solution. In figurative terms, let’s go to the drawing board.

What exactly is my goal here (This is the base of my project scope)?

I want a website where I can have access to data about perfumes, perfumers, brands, and materials and I would like users to be able to have accounts with followers, to log reviews, and to have lists (collection, wish lists, etc.).

How do I proceed to achieve that goal?

  • Database Design
  • API Design and Development
  • Frontend Development
  • User Authentication & Authorization
  • Deployment & Cloud Hosting

I tried to not go into much detail on such an early phase of this personal project. So, I decided to focus on only building an API to start.

As every creation, it needs a name. For my choice I wanted something meaningful and being a woman in tech I’m tiredly aware of the erasure of women contributions from history, especially on the fields of science and technology. I wanted to pay homage with my choice. So, I choose the name Tappūtī, who was a woman who lived in the city of Assur in Mesopotamia around 1 200 B.C, she is one of the world's first recorded chemists, a perfume-maker mentioned in a cuneiform tablet dated around 1200 BC in Babylonian Mesopotamia.[1]

The Girl Museum has a brief post about her and her colleague Ninu who was also a perfume-maker at the same time: Tappūtī Belatekallim, the First Chemist

On my further research I found the article Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim: The First Perfumer? on the site Death Scent by Nuri McBride where further historical context is given to the story of our woman of choice. I started my reading with one idea about who this woman was and came out of it with so much to think about.

I thought about changing my choice but trying to pinpoint a specific woman who was a pioneer, was the first this or that, is not productive to me in this instance. I decided to stick with my choice, she may not be the first one or the only one, but she was in the room where it happened, doing the work and she seemed, pardon my language, fucking good at it and sometimes that’s all that matters. I'll leave here my favorite quote.

I don’t think anyone here had bad intentions, but by presenting her this way, we lose the sense of who Tappūtī-Bēlet-ekallim was. She wasn’t a businesswoman, a scientist, or a Sumerian queen. She was a palace servant that spent her days in the bit hilṣi (perfumer’s workshop) located near the kitchens in the royal enclosure of Aššur. Cooks, apothecaries, and perfumers didn’t just work in close proximity in the royal enclosure; they used many of the same utensils, had overlapping duties, and indeed may have served dual functions within a household. Perfumery wasn’t born in a laboratory or a throne room. It was born in a kitchen.

Next, I’ll be sharing my decisions regarding database design and my stack of choice. I look forward to sharing my progress, challenges, and insights along the way.

1.Gabriele Kass-Simon; Patricia Farnes; Deborah Nash, eds. (1999). Women of Science: Righting the Record (First Midland Book ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press. p. 301. ISBN 9780253208132.