Monday, April 15, 2013

Mon Parfum by Bourjois c1919

Mon Parfum (My Perfume) by Bourjois: launched in 1919. It was a perfume created by Ernest Beaux and marketed  "my perfume reflects my personality" and "the sweetest perfume in the world."







The line was expanded to not only parfum and eau de toilette but to cosmetics and included face powder, lipstick, rouge, eye shadow, toilet soap, bath salts and bath powder. A first in the world of cosmetics, a line of pastel tinted eyeshadows, was also a part of the Mon Parfum line. A few gilded face powder compacts may also be found with the Mon Parfum logo by Bourjois.

The name of Mon Parfum used by Bourjois for fragrance and fragrance products was trademarked in 1928 in the USA. The perfume was still being sold into the late 1990s.










Fragrance Composition:


So what did it smell like? It was classified as a fruity, white floral perfume for women.
  • Top notes: freesia, water hyacinth, apple blossom, peach, mirabelle and apricot
  • Middle notes: rose, tuberose, ylang ylang and orange blossom
  • Base notes: vanilla and heliotrope

Bottles:


The original 1919 bottles were made by Baccarat and are clear crystal, topped off with a black crystal bun shaped stopper. The bottles had a gilded foil label accented with a stylized floral frieze. These came in three sizes for the parfum extrait, "le grande modele" , "le moyen modele" and "le petit modele"as seen in the photos of two 1919 brochures below.




The bottles used for the eau de toilette from 1919 til around 1940 were made by Baccarat. and are clear crystal, topped off with a black crystal bun shaped stopper. The bottles had a gilded foil label accented with a stylized floral frieze.

The presentation boxes were made up of gilded foil cardboard decorated with the same floral frieze shown on the perfume bottle labels, these luxury boxes were most likely manufactured by the company F. Bouvet & F. Gaud or Jean Martin, as both of them created the fancy boxes for Bourjois's perfumes. Jean Helleu, a French painter, also worked as a perfume and cosmetics advertising artist, and was the artistic designer for Bourjois.

Original parfum extrait bottle from 1920, photo by ebay seller coranol.

Original eau de toilette bottle from 1920, photo from an old ebay auction, notice that the bottle for the edt is taller than for the parfum.

Baccarat flacon for Mon Parfum, c1919, photo by ebay seller coranol


1990s bottle of eau de toilette, photo by etsy seller FRBrocante.



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This is not your average perfume blog. In each post, I present perfumes or companies as encyclopedic entries with as much facts and photos as I can add for easy reading and researching without all the extraneous fluff or puffery.

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