Anointing and Love: Anointing with essential oils has been used in ritual and ceremony for thousands of years, with one of the most widely known rites being the art of perfuming as an attractant for love. While most everyone today is familiar with the use of perfume and cologne as a tool for attracting a mate, most people don't know that essential oils were the original form of perfume. The word perfume comes from the Latin phrase "per" meaning through, and "fumus" meaning smoke. The original form of perfume was actually incense and has been traced back over 4,000 years to the use by Mesopotamians, who used resins and woods to burn in their religious ceremonies. Often, they would soak the resins and woods in water and then anoint themselves by rubbing the fragrant water over their bodies.