Only genuine with a red tulip, for purity and quality…that’s what the Farina house guarantees for its “Eau de Cologne”.
Wait a minute, isn’t there also “4711”, which claims to have the real cologne?
That is unfortunately a fallacy and is still a point of contention between “4711” and Farina to this day.
The founder of “4711”, Wilhelm Mülhens, only acquired the name rights of a certain other Farina in 1803 with the alleged original recipe for the miracle water and from then on thought he could sell his perfume under the name “Echt Kölnisch Wasser” and even sell the rights on.
It was not until 2006 that the trademark dispute was settled in favor of the Farina family and by then the Mülhens family was no longer the owner of “4711”.
Johann Maria Farina brought out the world’s first perfume in 1709.
He found a scent that reminded him of the Italian spring after a downpour.
Bergamot, lime, grapefruit and orange: all the scents of these plants have had their place in the closely guarded recipe since then.
And the “water”, which was relatively expensive even for the time, not only led to euphoria and inspiration among the nobility thanks to its exclusive scent, but also among many well-known contemporaries such as Goethe.
Marlene Dietrich, Konrad Adenauer and Bill Clinton were also customers and connoisseurs of the water.
The list could be continued with such well-known names as Princess Diana, Hildegard Knef and Romy Schneider.
The house of Farina has retained its nobility to this day:
After all, only small, select perfumeries and pharmacies have been supplied to date.
And those who think highly of themselves still order by letter on fine stationery. The perfume manufacturer had its headquarters here in the Farina House from 1723 and produced its perfumes until 1963. Today, a fragrance museum is housed here.
*Jews have always played a very important role in the history of Cologne. We now want to look at the history of Cologne’s Jewish population. To do this, we will now go up close to the original locations of former Jewish life in Cologne. *
