Judith Muller

Judith Muller was born in Hungary to a wealthy family, but the dream of the "spoiled girl" ended very soon with the devastating arrivals of Hitler and then Stalin. With her family, she moved to Israel where they were forced to earn their living. Judith was a one-time sergeant in the Israeli army.

The Beginning:

Judith Muller said she grew up a "spoiled little girl" in a wealthy family in Hungary. "I got my beauty training from an ever-young grandmother who taught me to shade my eyebrows with the held of a burnt-out match stick at the age of 6," she said. Her mother taught ballet and encouraged her to study cosmetics as a teenager. However, the start of the Second World War halted these plans. She explained that "In came Stalin and Hitler and we left for Israel. Away went the Rolls Royce. My mother had to go to work as a mand and I was selling soda on a street corner. I'm a born survivor."

While in Israel she had to do her national duty as part of the Israeli Army. "I came out a spoiled little girl with a lot of drive and discipline." But that wasn't the only thing she left with. "Perfume of the Holy Land," Judith's bright idea for her beauty industry came as she served as Sergeant "while on a night watch at an army base in divided Jerusalem with the contours of David's Tower looming on the horizon, all of a sudden, present and past blended together."

She never forgot her interest in cosmetics and it prompted her to set up her first beauty institute, in the backyard of her apartment, catering to her her fellow army compatriots. She said "I found out I knew more than nothing but less than something about beautician's work." So she traveled to Paris to study scent and cosmetic compounding, and worked with chemists to study which plants mentioned in the Bible still survived today.

By 1964, she returned to Israel and opened a beauty institute and perfume house Judith Muller Ltd., in Haïfa that specialized in Bible-inspired beauty methods and local ingredients. She was influenced by the application of myrrh oils used by Shulamite the shepherdess and royal lover featured in the Song of Songs. She was also experimenting with vapo-skin with olibanum, a special type of frankincense tapped from resinous African trees, supposedly brought to Israel by none other than the infamous Queen of Sheba herself. She was fascinated by a filliform special shower formula which was used by Sarah, who according to ancient legend, could still seduce men when she was at the advanced age of ninety.

Her office was located on Mt Carmel which overlooked Haifa and the Mediterranean Sea. She said that "After the institute proved successful, I had the impudence to start a perfume industry." This spurred her to further intensify her research on the ancient plants, flowers and legends about fragrance noted in the Bible.

The idea for the cologne and perfume is as simple as it has been successful: she combined the ancient flowers and plants known to the women of the Bible with modern technology. As she romantically put it... "the scents of today from the fragrances of the past." She also came up with the idea to produce a range of scents all named after iconic Biblical characters 

It was in 1962, when she originally formulated a prototype of the Bat-Sheba perfume, based on natural Biblical ingredients. "I started with nothing. But I had a lot going for me - the Bible which had sex and the love story of David and Bath-Sheba. It had everything - love, sin, marriage, and motherhood," said Muller. Bat Sheba, named after the young woman, while married to Uriah the Hittite, seduced King David, is the essence of the woman so lovely she caused the chosen King of Israel to break the seventh commandment.

Bat Sheba was to become Muller's signature fragrance and today, still remains as her most well known. It was formulated with modern ingredients by IFF perfumers Ernest Shifftan and Sophia Grojsman and officially launched in 1964 and offered worldwide by 1966.

To help promote the fragrance in 1968, Miss Israel of 1966, Rina Kishon, traveled to the United States on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal. Kishon, who came to Israel in 1951 with her family, penniless Romanian immigrants feeling communism, who had to start their lives all over again. At the age of eighteen, Kishon entered the compulsory Army service and became an expert marksman. She spent six months of military duty within just 500 yards of the Syrian border of Tzemah. The Israeli Army sent her to Technion, a college in Haifa, where she became a mechanical draftsman. There she took the school's beauty crown and was asked to compete for the title of Miss Israel. 

Kishon explained, "They said I'd get a free trip to Europe, so I entered. I never expected to win." To her surprise, she won the pageant and traveled to the United States to compete for Miss Universe. While she was there, she introduced the Bat Sheba fragrance for Judith Muller at select department stores such as Hess' and Strawbridge & Clothier, as part of her duties for winning Miss Israel.

Miss Kishon talked about the fragrance, life in Israel and her stint in the army and mentioned her husband, an Israeli engineer continued further study in New York. Kishon revealed that Judith Muller rediscovered two ancient formulas, the Bath Sheba fragrance was available in two versions: Exotic Oriental, which has a crisp-spicy, sweet flower-fresh scent, and Woody Modern, which captures the clean, fresh magic of nature. 

By 1974, the Judith Muller company was producing approximately $300,000 worth of scent annually - at least $250,000 of it was exported to sixteen countries. With the immediate success of the products, by 1976, Judith Muller. Ltd.. was Israel's largest independent manufacturer of liquid fragrances.

After the death of her husband, David Gati, she closed her beauty institute at Haifa and moved to Tel Aviv, where she began to create bespoke fragrances for individual clients such as jewelry stores, hotels and individual countries.  For Thailand, she created the Oriental. For Fiji, she created Fidjit of Suva. Then came the Flame of the Sheraton, in a lovely flame-shaped bottle. For the H. Stern jewelry concern, she created Esprit de Parfum whose bottle contains an actual citrine gemstone inside.

Judith Muller passed away in 2012 from terminal cancer, you can read more about her here.

Bottles:

Because a packaging industry was absent in Israel at the time, Judith decided to create her own bottle. A unique production technique helped to boost sales. Judith Muller packaged her scents in pretty, smoky-glass flacons shaped to look like ancient bottles. The bottles, each hand painted by local Yemenites at Haifa and sun cured to preserve the artwork permanently, an ancient process that cannot be reproduced mechanically. This ensures that no two are exactly alike. The hand-painted vials are topped by stoppers that are replicas of Judean coins. Then the bottles are tied onto the hand painted bottles and boxes are hand wrapped with cellophane.

The bottles were available in the usual measures, but you can also find gift sets of two, four, six, and eight miniature bottles. Some of the flacons were housed in small leather pouches in fashionable colors, which could double as storage for jewelry. In each package is a Biblical scroll with the romantic story of David and Bath-Sheba. Other sets with housed in gift boxes while tiny bottles can be found dangling from keychains or necklaces.

CLICK HERE TO FIND JUDITH MULLER FRAGRANCES ON EBAY

Judith Muller explained to New Woman magazine in 1974 that "We copied an old glass bottle taken from the collection at the Ha-aretz Glass Museum.  How do you close a perfume bottle? We copied a coin bearing the portrait of the Emperor Vespasianus, a coin from the collection at the Israel Museum ... I 'schlepped' my first 20,000 bottles all myself, hand-painted, packed and filled."

Other bottles were authentic Israeli pottery jugs that held one and a half gallons of the perfume and retailed for $3,000 a piece.

In 1976, some bottles of Judith & King David also came with a gold plated necklace with the number 5737 on it representing the Jewish New Year.

Judith Muller Fragrance List:

• 1962 Bat-Sheba
• 1968 Bat-Sheba Exotic Oriental 
• 1968 Bat-Sheba Woody Modern
• 1970 Shalom
• 1974 King David (for men)
• 1975 Judith
• 1976 JM (for teenagers)
• 1992 H. Stern
• 1996 Jerusalem 3,000
• 2005 Hungarian Rhapsody No 5
• Israel
• Rose Ambree
• Sharon
• Flame (limited edition created for the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv)

The Fragrances: 

Please note that I may not have all of the notes listed for each fragrance, I would need some samples and your input to help update the list.

Bat-Sheba: created in 1962 by IFF perfumer Ernest Shifftan and Sophia Grojsman. It is classified as a fruity floral chypre perfume for women.

• Top notes: aldehydes, cardamom, bergamot, fruit notes, green notes
• Heart notes: desert cactus, honey, jasmine, rose, orris, ylang-ylang, carnation
• Base notes: frankincense, myrrh, musk, sandalwood, balsam, patchouli, vetiver, castoreum, vanilla, amber, leather, oakmoss

Bat-Sheba Woody Modern: created in 1964. It is classified as a bitter green woody chypre perfume for women. Described as "clean and fresh", it's top notes sparkle with aldehydes and green notes.

• Top notes: aldehydes, cardamom, bergamot, galbanum, rosewood, hyacinth
• Middle notes: spices, desert cactus, honey, jasmine, rose, orris, ylang-ylang, carnation, cocoa
• Base notes: frankincense, sandalwood, balsam, patchouli, vetiver, castoreum, vanilla, amber, leather, oakmoss, myrrh

Bat-Sheba Exotic Oriental: created in 1968 by IFF perfumer Ernest Shifftan and Sophia Grojsman. It is classified as a spicy oriental fougere perfume for women. It is described as "sweet, crisp, spicy with a flower fresh" scent.

• Top notes: aldehydes, cardamom, bergamot, fruit notes, rosewood, lavender
• Heart notes: spices, jasmine, rose, orris, ylang-ylang, carnation, myrrh
• Base notes: resins, frankincense, sandalwood, benzoin, balsam, patchouli, vetiver, castoreum, vanilla, amber, leather, oakmoss

Sharon: is classified as a floral (jasmine-rose) aldehyde perfume with soft chypre-fruity-ambery notes, close to Arpège and Madame Rochas. The main idea is a chypre-mossy-fruity accord.

• Top notes: aldehydes, bergamot, fruit notes, neroli, honeysuckle
• Middle notes: rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, iris, lily of the valley
• Base notes: benzoin, oakmoss, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, labdanum, vanilla, musk, amber

Judith: created in 1975, it is classified as a fresh floral perfume for women. A seductive blend of petals from the rose bushes of Jericho, green herbs from Mount Carmel, hints of musk and jasmine.

• Top notes: aldehydes, fruity notes, bergamot, hyacinth, lemon, orange
• Middle notes: jasmine, carnation, orchid, orris, Jericho rose, cyclamen, ylang ylang
• Base notes: oakmoss, sandalwood, musk, amber, cedar, benzoin, caramel, cinnamon

Shalom: created in 1970, is classified as a mossy fruity chypre perfume for women.

• Top notes: peach, plum, rosewood, cardamom, bergamot
• Middle notes: jasmine, nutmeg, rose, orris, carnation, ylang ylang
• Base notes: benzoin, leather, oakmoss, vetiver, sandalwood, amber, civet

King David: created as a modern fougere fragrance for men, but loved by women as well.A strong , masculine and dominant line for men, starts off with a fresh and herbaceous top, followed by a dry, spicy floral heart, resting on an ambery, mossy base.

• Top notes: lavender, bergamot, rosemary, laurel, petitgrain
• Middle notes: carnation, geranium, aldehyde, pine, cinnamon, fern, rose
• Base notes: frankincense, myrrh, oakmoss, cedar, musk, fir, tonka bean, amber

JM: created in 1974, is classified as light, fresh floral perfume that was meant to be worn by teenage girls.

• Top notes: aldehydes, citrus notes
• Middle notes: spices, floral notes
• Base notes: amber, vanilla, sandalwood

H. Stern Esprit de Parfum: a unisex aldehydic green floral fragrance, based on a combination of aromatic plants and essences mentioned in the Bible. It was launched in 1992 for the luxury jewelry store and was given as a gift to special customers only. The bottle contains an actual gemstone inside. The perfume bottle, is painted in a color like the stone inside of it.

• Top notes: aldehydes and green notes
• Middle notes: rose and other floral notes 
• Base notes: musk

Jerusalem 3,000: launched in 1996, it is a unisex fragrance featuring oriental notes, flowers, spices, frankincense and myrrh, based on an ancient formula. It was created by Judith Muller in cooperation with Ein Gedi Cosmetics, to celebrate the 3000th anniversary of Jerusalem and for the Israel Coins and Medal Corporation, and was presented in a limited edition coffret with certificate and 24kt gold medal of honor of the city. The perfume was sold in a gift box alongside a scroll describing the history of Jerusalem and a solid silver medal plated with 24kt gold. One face of the Medal has the "Jerusalem 3000" state medal designed by Yacov Anidi; and the other face, designed by Ruben Nutels, features the famouse Bat Sheba Perfume bottle, bearing the biblical quotation: "neither was there any such spice..." (II Chronicals, IX (9). Each bottle has a brass base with a serial number, identical to that printed on the medal, thus assuring the Collector's Item value.

• Top notes: beramot
• Middle notes: spices and floral notes
• Base notes: myrrh, amber, vanilla, sandalwood, patchouli, frankincense

Eszterháza No. 1: a fragrance for women, launched in 2004 as a tribute to Princess Margaret Esterházy and was created in cooperation with the Hungarian cosmetic company Natural Doctor.

The Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 perfume, inspired by Franz Liszt, was created by Pierre Bourdon in 2005 as a national fragrance of Hungary and is presented in a porcelain bottle by Endre Szász and decorated with graphics by John Mata. The perfume is made up of the flowers found in Hungary and won the Hungarian Quality Product Award.

• Top notes: green pepper
• Middle notes: lily, lilac, rose and jasmine
• Base notes: myrrh and ambergris

Flame: a unisex fragrance, a limited edition of only 700 copies, created for the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv.