Ambre de Delhi by Babani c1921

Ambre de Delhi by Babani: launched in 1921. Subtitled the "Breath of Love" and Parfum de Hindou. It was designed to be used to perfume furs as well as cigarettes, and to be used in perfume lamps. It was also available in a face powder.

Briggs White Gold Filled Compacts c1927 Advertisement

Striking full color advertisements for Briggs compacts and vanity cases from a 1927 Huntley & Co. catalog. All of these compacts will have the marking of "DFB Co." I love the elegant chain handles on these, they are perfect for dancing the tango and was the reason for why they are named tango compacts or dance compacts. Each one has beautiful engine turned or enameled details which make them even more attractive. Most are made up of white gold or green gold fill, most have sterling silver tops.

original images: ebay seller gdawg

May Fair Compacts c1927 Advertisement

May Fair Compacts shown in a striking full color advertisement from a 1927 Huntley & Co. catalog. Vanity compacts, dance compacts, tango compacts, engine turned, enameled and jeweled examples are shown.

ON EBAY!!! Vintage 1920s Ambre by OTA Pearl Perfume Presentation

Very rare 1920s trompe l'oeil perfume presentation for Ambre by Ota, using perfume bottles coated in laitance de hareng pearlescent finish perfected by Andre Jollivet and the Nesle Normandeuse glassworks.

Click HERE to view auction

Vintage Boudoirs of the Stars - Part 2

Claudette Colbert c1930s, various perfume bottles are shown on her vanity including Reflexions by Ciro, plus many others that look to be in travel flacons.

Dixie Dunbar c1940s, a Czech crystal perfume bottle and a Czech cut crystal atomizer are seen on her fringed vanity table.

Dorothy Dell, 1930s, various Czech perfume bottles on her vanity too.

Anne Shirley c1930s, gorgeous long handled hand mirror.

 Agnes Ayres, c1920s, beautiful French hand mirror covered in silk and metallic passementerie trim.

Anita Page, c1920s-1930s,large Guerlain bottle for L'Heure Bleue or Mitsouko in the center of her vanity, and flanked by perfume atomizers, probably DeVilbiss.

Ann Dvorak, 1930s, two Lentheric perfumes on her vanity, Miracle and Asphodele.

Ann Dvorak, again, a different view, with the same Lentheric perfumes, here she is dabbing her skin with a bottle of Prince Matchabelli perfume.

photos from various sources found on the internet

Le Golliwogg by Vigny c1918

Le Golliwogg by Vigny: launched in 1918.

Dolores Del Rio and Her Perfume Collection

Dolores Del Rio and her beautiful perfume collection.

In this photo I spy:

• Lerys 6 bottle presentation in bronze caddy
• Parfum des Champs Elysées/À Travers Champs/Guerlinade or Candide Effluve by Guerlain
• Jungla by Myrurgia c1933
• unknown early Elizabeth Arden
• Secret de la Perle by Pleville c1926
• two Prince Matchabelli bottles
• La Jacee by Coty
• Sans Adieu by Worth c1929 (Lalique bottle)
• Les Lys by D'Orsay c1922 (Lalique bottle)
• Hattie Carnegie c1925 (Depinoix bottle)
• Lentheric (Baccarat bottle)
• Elizabeth Arden
• She is holding an early Lancome bottle, possibly for Kypre or Bocages

I cannot make out all of the bottles, nor can I make out labels, but if you can, please comment below. 

Celluloid Perfume Bottles 1927 Advertisement

Celluloid Perfume Bottles shown in a 1927 Advertisement for N. Shure Co.

Nysis by Agra c1919

Nysis by Agra Parfumeur: launched in 1919. Nysis was a line that included perfume, toilet water, cold cream, talc, face powder, vanishing cream, and soap.

The packaging is emblazoned with a wonderful Egyptian style woman's head wit long black hair.  Themes featuring any sort of Egyptomania was very popular during the 1920s. You can see from the advertisements below that the Egyptian theme was carried out by showing some Egyptian maidens to the upper right side of the ads. These were from a 1920 issue of Cosmopolitan.

Nysis has been discontinued since the 1920s. The products are very collectible, with the perfume and toilet water the most expensive and rare, while the face powder and the talcum tin are common.

 

Martial et Armand Perfumes

Martial et Armand,  (Mahr-see-al ay Arm-ahn) couture house of 10 place Vendome, Paris.

Maudy & De Musset Perfumes

Maudy of 7 rue Lilas, Colombes (Seine) France, was established in 1928 by Adrienne Foy,  they were affiliated to de Musset and produced luxury presentations..

De Musset was established in New York in 1928 by Marcel Foy in New York in 1928; launched a range of fragrances in c1920 and 1930's and remained in business of short duration. Associated with Legrain.

La Tausca Pearls & Their Jeweled Presentation Boxes

La Tausca Pearls was a trade name for high quality faux pearls used by three different companies: Maurice J. Karpeles, L. Heller & Son Inc and Martin Low & Taussig, Providence RI. This trade name was in use from around 1915 as it was first seen in a Albert Walker jewelry catalog. Then in 1956 it merged with Deltah Pearls and became Heller-Deltah. The La Tausca division was later bought by Arlan Jewelry Co.The main La Tausca store dealt in fine jewelry and was located on Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Les Parfums de Vigny

In this guide I have listed the various perfumes presented by de Vigny from 1921 to 1952.

Dermay Perfumers, Inc

Dermay Perfumers Inc. was an American company established in 1924 by Jerome "Jerry" E. Baum at 347 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Dermay sold bath salts, perfumes, creams, toilet waters, face powder, talcum, bath and dusting powders,  manicure sets and soaps. The name Dermay was filed for trademark in 1924. Jerome Baum was presendient, secretary and director of the company.

A'Suma by Coty c1934

A'Suma was launched in France in 1934 by Coty.  It was jointly created by Francois Coty and Vincent Roubert.  The sensuous perfume was inspired by a mysterious moonlit tropical beach in Bali.

Zutz Cosmetics Company

The Zutz Cosmetics Company was started by Henry E. and Julia Zutz in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1923. They made by hand, a variety of women's perfumes and cosmetics in small batches for specialty shops of their time.

Henry was trained as a pharmacist and worked in that field for years before starting his own cosmetics company.

They ceased production completely by 1946.

Fulper Pottery Perfume Lamps

In the 1920s, Fulper offered a range of porcelain perfume lamps, or Lumiers de Parfum. Their most common example is the dainty little Ballerina.  Perfume goes in the base and when the light bulb heats it and the scent comes out the holes in the sides of the ballerinas head. Boudoir lamp and base measure 6 1/2" tall and 4 1/4" wide. The lamp was available in several colors including: Henna, Blue, Pink, Jade, Orchid, Apricot Peach, Flame, Black, Canary, Old Rose and Turquoise. 

As advertised in Arts & Decoration, Volumes 15-16. 1921.

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Hujarvis Perfumes

Hujarvis was established by René Eyben at 175 boulevard Malesherbes, Paris in 1920. The company also produced toiletries and cosmetics. Of special note were their Cucumber or Lemon soaps, wrapped in glassine paper in sets of three. the company was still in business in 1925.

Blue Waltz by Joubert c1920

Blue Waltz, this endearing perfume from the past was created by either Joubert et Cie or Jolind Inc. around 1920.

Andre Jollivet and Laitance de Hareng Perfume Bottles

Originally Posted on March 11, 2010 at 11:45 PM  on my original Cleopatra's Boudoir site.

Just after World War I, French glass designer Andre Jollivet started working with different finishes for perfume bottles, he was looking for something completely new and innovative and started working with a substance called “essence d‘orient”. This pearlized tincture was first created by a French artist named M. Jacquin in 1680 and is actually made from guanine crystallites found in the ground up scales of the bleak or herring and mixed with the natural oils of the fish to create a solution named “Essence D‘Orient“.

It takes a hundred tons of herring to extract one ton of herring scales in order to produce a single pound of essence d’Orient. This beautiful, iridescent coating was normally applied to glass beads to mimic Oriental pearls during jewelry making. Jollivet must have seen the potential to create interesting perfume bottle presentations and employed the Nesle Normandeuse Glassworks to create the bottles with the lustrous pearly finish. He improved upon the essence d’orient substance and managed to create a new resistant and very realistic pearlized finish “laitance de hareng” (herring roe).

Several perfume companies in France employed this beautiful finish in the making of their perfumes. Companies such as Volnay, Rochambeau, Isabey, Pleville, Parfums de Marcy and others all used variations of these bottles for their presentations. One notable presentation was for the perfume Perlinette by Volnay, which may have been directly inspired by the laitance de hareng finish.

Rochambeau introduced the Perles de France presentation consisting of a set of 3 small round, pearlized bottles in black leatherette case in 1926. A similar presentation was created by an practically unknown company named Ota, in 1929 for their perfumes Lilas and Violette.

Other companies capitalized on the faux pearl theme and no one did it better than Parfums de Marcy with their fabulous Trompe l'Oeil presentation named "Le Collier Miraculeux". Launched in 1927, a box containing pearl shaped bottles in graduated sizes realistically mimicked the look of a real pearl necklace, created by Paul Heymann.

The inspiration for Parfums de Marcy's presentation must have directly come from Delettrez's String of Pearls presentation for Parfum XXIII from 1923, it looks nearly identical in every way to the presentation by de Marcy..

Equally pretty was the "Le Collier de Isabey" presentation by Isabey of 1925, with six pearl shaped perfume bottles arranged to simulate a pearl necklace in a demi-lune presentation case. It won the company a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels Modernes.  Isabey also made usage of these small round bottles for their individual perfumes such as Ambre de Carthage, Chypre Celtique, Bleu de Chine, Violette, Gardenia and Chypre.

Volnay introduced many of their perfumes in pearlized bottles, starting in 1919 with names such as Lilas, Rosee de Bois, Perlerette, Perlinette, Iris Neige and Firefly. These bottles came in several shapes ranging from simple cylinders, upside down cone shapes and large and small globular pearl bottles, like the ones used by other companies such as Elliot Brother's for their perfume Boronia in the 1920s.

In 1938, Varva introduced a trompe l’oeil perfume bottle in the shape of a pearl ring in a box. The pearlized glass perfume bottle sat inverted in a silver tone Bakelite ring setting flanked by two faux baguette diamonds, affixed to a leatherette box base covered with fuchsia velveteen.

To see many beautiful bottles in full-color illustrations, I suggest further reading of Masterpieces of the Perfume Industry and The Art of Perfume, both books by Christie Mayer Lefkowith.

A word of caution, the utmost care must be used when handling any of these pearlized bottles, although the finish was made to be resistant, after 70-80s years, the finish is very delicate and can be removed by cleaning or rough handling. Such actions can result in the loss of finish which cannot be restored.