Jasmin from Egypt by Tuvache c1941

Jasmin from Egypt by Tuvache: launched in 1941.

"The most expensive perfume in the world, according to a message this column has just received from New York, will soon come to Minneapolis. Its name is Jasmin from Egypt, and it is said to be worth $100 an ounce. Here is the story behind it:

Jasmin from Egypt was formulated, not in the laboratories of a great perfume house, but in the home of Bernadine Angus, Broadway and movie playwright. Mrs. Angus' pet secret for overcoming fatigue is the inspiration for her perfume formula. Instead of keeping her scent bottles on her dressing case, she keeps them on her desk, and whenever she becomes tired while writing away the long hours of the night, she daubs the back of one hand with perfume which, she says, fires her imagination and rests her nerves. From this need of perfume, she developed a great curiosity about it.

One summer Mr. and Mrs. Angus decided to spend their vacation in Morocco where she hoped to find plots for new plays. It was during this vacation that they were invited to dine at the home of a sheik, and Mrs. Angus was admitted to the harem of four wives. The bejeweled and silken garbed favorite wife wafted the most "divine and frankly alluring"  fragrance that Mrs. Angus had ever sniffed, and the next day she began questioning the perfume apothecaries of the bazaars about the scent. She discovered it was precious jasmine from Egypt which only the greatest of the sirens could afford.

Finally the time came when she decided to make a small amount of Egyptian Jasmin for American beauties. From the land of the Sphinx she ordered one pound of jasmine essence for which she paid $1600. Three ships were torpedoed during the precious wax's trip to this country, but at last it arrived. Already it is beginning to make glamour history for the North American continent."

Fragrance Composition:

So what does it smell like? Jasmin from Egypt is classified as a jasmine soliflore fragrance for women. it is sweet, heavy and authentic in scent to the jasmine.

"Jasmin from Egypt is the pure essence of those heavenly scented, tiny star-shaped blossoms that have for centuries made the nights on the Nile the most romantic in the world. it's the swooningly magnetic fragrance of the most glamourous women of the world."

Bottle:

"The precious liquid is being encased in the hollow center of an oblong hunk of crystal which looks as if Cleopatra's slaves might have wrested it from the earth's rare treasures. Like the fabulous gifts stored in the tombs of the Pharaohs, the crystal chamber is wrapped in long strips of Egyptian linen (even as were the royal mummies) and laid to rest in a wooden case. A high cubical stopper is the entrance to the precious liquid chamber, and it is raffia-bound Egyptian-wise to the crystal oblong."

The bottle used from Jasmin from Egypt was unique, it was a very heavy, chunky lead crystal rectangular flacon. It had a hollowed out chamber which held just an ounce of precious parfum. The heavy stopper was a flared design with a ground glass plug. The name "Jasmin from Egypt" and "M. de Tuvache New York" is acid etched into the front. The bottle is unmarked as to country of origin, but I feel confident that the crystal bottle was manufactured in Japan just prior to the US involvement in the Second World War. It resembles the chunky crystal bottles that I have seen with Irice stickers intact on bottles made in Japan in the late 1930s period. These would have been custom acid etched in Japan and imported into the USA by Mme. Tuvache. I would think that if Tuvache imported these bottles, she would have removed the country of origin sticker because of the war and the anti-Japanese sentiments strongly held in the US at the time.

The bottle was wrapped with Egyptian linen strips to protect the crystal during shipping and raffia strings were tightly wrapped to hold the stopper in place. The bottle was housed in a wooden presentation box wrapped with raffia strings and covered with stickers to mimic a shipping container.

Harrisburg Telegraph, 1945:

"$100 an ounce perfume... reflecting the luxury boom of 1944, perfume departments had trouble keeping a stock of expensive scents. Most fabulous hit of all was Tuvache's hundred dollar and ounce, Jasmin de Egypt."

Star Tribune, 1947:

"What is supposed to be the most expensive perfume in the world costs three times its weight in gold - and was dreamed up by a lady playwright. It is "Jasmine from Egypt", compounded by Bernadine de Tuvache, red-headed owner of the Tuvache perfume company and author of three Broadway comedies, including 'Angel Island' which became a movie. The stuff costs $100 an ounce, plus a $20 tax, which brings the tariff to roughly 26 cents a drop. Rather to the amazement of Miss de Tuvache, thousands  of  men and women all over the USA have bought the perfume since it was introduced in 1941. A good share of these customers are in Hollywood.  "Movie stars must pour it on by the bottle",  Miss Tuvache says. Perfume, she says, is actually worth what it costs, in cold blooded terms of what goes into it. One of her scents, "Zezan", was invented during the war, and OPA officials, noting the costs of the ingredients set the price at $75 an ounce The extraordinary concentration of her perfumes, as well as the distinctive fragrances, make up their high cost, Miss de Tuvache says."

The New Yorker, 1956:

"Tuvache's highly self-possessed Violet, Moroccan Rose, and Jungle Gardenia are more and more popular, and, for $49.50, this firm will make up, to order, four ounces of highly concentrated Jasmine from Egypt, a sultry skin perfume that is not easy to wear- just be sure the woman better be sure the lady has a passion for it. Tuvaché bath oils come in five scents (the three above plus lilac and lily of the valley) cost from $7.50 to $11 and will take the place of perfumes on the hair of furs."

 

Fate of the Fragrance:

Discontinued, date unknown. Still sold in 1976 where it was reported in a book Salted Peanuts: Eighteen Hundred Little Known Facts: that "Jasmine of Egypt" by Tuvache is the most costly perfume in the world . It now retails in America for ninety dollars per ounce."