Monday, April 16, 2012

Suggestive Perfume Bottles, vol. 1




A friend gave me this bottle a couple of years ago. The bulb is embossed with the words "DeVilleBliss." I've seen them in antique stores once or twice. Anybody know the age and/or provenance of it?

(2017 edit: it was a nasal irrigator! I guess you were supposed to fill the bottle with water or something, then blast it up into your sinuses by squeezing the bulb. Ewwww!)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was thinking this looked a lot like an early industrial sprayer rather than a pretty item for a lady's toilette. A google search led me to the website of industrial spray giant DeVilbiss and the story of Dr Allen DeVilbiss inventor of the first atomizer for spraying medication into the nose and throat. His son went on to develop industrial sprayers and introduce "perfumizers" to the product line.

A further search on the Dr's name led me to what you really want to see:
http://www.perfumeprojects.com/museum/marketers/DeVilbiss.shtml

There is one illustration of a medical atomizer very similar to this, though with a differently shaped nozzle, and the DeVilbiss site says there were a number of models. I'm thinking that this looks more like a nasal model, although it's possible it was among the earliest of the perfumizers.

-- Lindaloo

Anonymous said...

Um. . . I don't think that is a perfume bottle. It seems to be a medical device for spraying something into an orifice. I am not sure that I want to know which one.

Olfacta said...

(Slaps own forehead) of course! I was thinking inside the box. Wow. A medical atomizer. To me it looked so Moderne, like something from the Thirties. Thanks, Lindaloo!

Olfacta said...

Hi Anonymous -- You know, I don't want to think about that either, but I bet it was nasal. At least I hope it was nasal.

Olfacta said...

Oh, I forgot to mention -- I saw one, smaller than this one, in an antique store and the price was $50. Will have to do an online auction search.

Dionne said...

I really, REALLY have no clue what that is, but your title made me laugh. :)

Olfacta said...

Hi Dionne -- I'll have to hunt down some more bottles, so there can be further volumes.

BTW the ones on ebay were around 9 or 10 bucks, so the $50 one I saw in the antique store was WAY overpriced.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Dionne. Before I defaulted into research mode I had to stop giggling at the title and snickering at the picture. You could always add the "classic" Pierre Cardin bottle.

-- Lindaloo

Vanessa said...

Never mind the provenance of this particular one - do keep the series!

I have an "antique" perfume bottle that is a snuff bottle as it turns out. And a cheap Chinese copy at that. Oh well.