About perfume bottles
With our understanding of the nature of perfume, from the self-esteem it offers its wearer to the indescribable effect it sometimes has on its very specific viewers, it is not unusual for perfume to be stored in containers whose styles evidently replicate the mystical qualities of perfume. fluids. within them. Even if it’s a slender bottle, a tiny teardrop-shaped blister, or perhaps a flat-sided circular ampule, fragrance bottles are made to contain magic, unleashed exclusively every time the bottle is opened and a drop or two of the valuable liquid is applied with caution.
Glass blowers in the UK, Bohemia, Germany and France made fragrance containers throughout the 19th century. Glassmakers in the US, such as the New England Glass Company and the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, also created perfume bottles during the 19th century. Some of these are duller hexagonal (white, blue, and green were common colors), with knobby pineapple-shaped caps. Others were known gem vessels, in which 2 flattened oval bottles were joined together in the furnace, with the necks facing in opposite directions. Gemel containers, specifically the free-standing ones in bright colors, are mainly appreciated…
For enthusiasts, a fantastic place for vintage scent vessels is undoubtedly Art Nouveau. Beginning in the 1890s, artisans and glassmakers made intricately designed or blown glass perfume containers along with elaborate lids, most of which had corks and hinged silver collars. Conical purse-sized bottles with really small necks and round caps were usually embellished with gold flower and leaf motifs; manufacturers included Thomas Webb & Sons and Stevens & Williams Glass Company, both of Staffordshire, England.
The same companies also created cameo glass perfume containers. Once again leaves and flowers seemed to be the favorite motifs, in colors ranging from pink to purple to green, most of which were clad in white. In the US, Steuben designed bulb-shaped perfume bottles using the company’s Verre de Soie process, with strands of glass covering the piece and matching the color of its iridescent base. Tiffany’s vessels included small, squat glass cylinders with carved studded bottoms and ornately engraved silver tops that covered the glass stopper of the bottle.
In France, René Lalique has been a giant when it comes to small fragrance packages, which he made in a series of ever-larger factories outside of Paris for François Coty along with other perfumers. Lalique brought his jeweler’s eye to perfume bottles, even applying a jewelry casting process called lost wax, known as lost wax.
Unlike several of his contemporaries, Lalique did not add lead to his crystal. Rather, he preferred a demi-crystal as it was inexpensive, easy to work with, and also imbued his perfume containers with what became his characteristic milky opalescence.
Throughout Lalique’s collaboration with Coty, which lasted through the 1930s, he also created perfume packaging for d’Orsay and Roger et Gallet. A Roger et Gallet bottle was surmounted by an intricate tiara stopper, no doubt one of many patterns copied from Lalique. One more was a dull green round container that has a bird on only one side and the phrase “LE JADE” at the bottom.
Later, when the Lalique name was attached to perfume packaging like Coty’s, he made empty containers so customers could transfer their perfumes into Lalique’s fancier packaging. Tantot and Amphitrite are just two types of unfilled Lalique perfume containers.
During the 1920s and 1930s, glass perfume containers inspired by the Art Deco movement were all the rage. Natural shapes and motifs gave way to geometric styles and bold, elegant designs. In Czechoslovakia, perfume containers from this period are constantly made from carefully cut, blown glass. For many of these bottles, the diameters of the caps were as great as those of the bottles below them, allowing these usually simple containers to feel like a Las Vegas showgirl with an incredibly top-heavy headdress. higher.
Still between the wars, Paris had been the place of perfumes and perfume bottles. Signature shapes were coded for Chanel No. 5 and Shalimar by Guerlain, and magnificent collaborations developed between Baccarat, the renowned creator of fine crystal, and everyone from Guerlain to fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. For Guerlain, Baccarat created the Japanese-influenced Liu bottle, with its square-sided black body trimmed with gold labels. For Schiaparelli, Baccarat developed a candle-shaped bottle on a chandelier, with a golden metal flame as a stopper.
For more information on antique perfume bottles, visit http://antiqueperfumebottlesonline.com/