You might remember how overjoyed I was in late 2013 when a mysterious person emailed me and asked to bestow a mighty lot of Stila memorabilia. Well, back in the spring a different mystery Stila aficionado contacted me and asked if I wanted her vintage Stila ephemera. As with the previous donor, she refused to accept payment, even for postage, and sent me an enormous package chock full of lovely Stila cards and other goodies. See, Stila fans are the best!!
Now that I'm done gushing about the extremely generous people who graciously donated these items, let's take an in-depth look.
Even the outer envelope for this has an adorable illustration:
How adorable is this mini 3-ring binder?!
I think is from around 2003, since the "Look of the Month" palettes had some of the same illustrations and were released at Nordstrom in January 2004. For example, the little lady below was used in the April palette.
The donor also included some pretty cool Anna Sui postcards.
So wasn't that nice?! Whoever sent this my way, thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my Stila-loving heart!! I'm still in awe from the generosity.
Which is your favorite from this glorious batch of rare Stila items? I love it all, of course, but I think I'm partial to the white postcards, which look to be very early in Stila's history…but the postcard with the girl catching pairs of rouged lips in a butterfly net is pretty spectacular too.
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As you may know I occasionally receive emails from folks needing help identifying vintage makeup items. Today's post highlights several lovely vintage compacts, pictures of which were sent to me by a woman whose grandmother had passed away and left the compacts to her. As she would like to hold on to the compacts as keepsakes, she was curious to know more about them.
Fortunately this inquirer also sent pictures of the compacts open and their reverse side, so for two of the three I was able to identify the company that made them based on the puff that was included. On the left is a compact by Elmo (no, not the Sesame Street character), the middle one I wasn't sure about, and the compact on the right is by Evans.
At the time I received the inquiry, there was virtually no information available on Elmo Sales Corp., a Philadelphia-based company founded in the early 1900s, and I really had no idea what decade the compact might be from. So you can imagine I was overjoyed to see that a comprehensive history of the company surfaced at the ever-thorough Collecting Vintage Compacts blog back in May of 2014. The blog author included a picture of an identical compact in ivory enamel that was dated to 1941, so I'm guessing the black enameled compact is from around the same time.
(image from flickr.com)
The middle one was a bit trickier. By sheer luck I stumbled across a similar-looking compact for sale at One King's Lane by a company called Cara Mia. The site listed it as being from the '30s.
Based on the interior of the compact, with its two compartments and diamond pattern, I have reason to believe the one in the pictures I was sent is also a Cara Mia. However, I think it might be a little bit later, circa 1940s.
(images from onekingslane.com)
As for the remaining compact, there's a wealth of information on Evans thanks again to Collecting Vintage Compacts. However, I couldn't find any that looked identical to the one in the picture I was sent, so I had a difficult time dating it. I found one that was sort of similar in that it had a combination of rosy copper and gold metal tones, and that one, according to the seller, is from the 1940s.
(image from etsy.com)
The person who emailed me with her inquiry, bless her, was quite grateful to get the meager information I had provided. I wish I could have given exact dates for all and been able to say with 100% certainty that the heart-shaped compact was by Cara Mia, but even after over 6 years of running the Makeup Museum I'm still getting my feet wet in terms of vintage makeup. 🙂
What do you think of these? And do you agree with my assessments?
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I love getting inquiries but I hate when I let the inquirer down by not having an answer! This one was truly a head-scratcher. A woman emailed me explaining that she used to collect beauty ads, and sadly her house burned down and she lost the entire collection (one of my biggest fears!) She wanted to know whether I remembered one of her favorites that was lost so that she could try to track it down. The ad description is as follows:
– Was for a fall collection in 1998, 1999, 2000, or 2001;
– Was for a drugstore company (Cover Girl, Maybelline, etc.);
– Featured a "smoky and myterious" palette, comprised of "dark greens and purples and blues, very autumnal and mystical";
– Was at least 2 pages long, possibly 3;
– In addition to the model, there was also a cat in the ad.
Unfortunately, since I didn't get into collecting until about 2004, I had no memory of this ad. I scoured the Interwebz for hours trying every imaginable phrase in Google image search and on Pinterest. But I know not everything is online so I thought, we'll do this the old-fashioned way. I bought the 1999 and 2001 September issues of Allure as well as the October 1998 and 2000 issues hoping to find it. Wouldn't it be cool if I could find the actual ad in an old magazine and send it to her to help rebuild her collection? Alas, nothing fitting her description was in the magazines, nor in any of the earlier ones I had purchased for my failed '90s exhibition – I had kept an eye out for something fitting the description as I went through those. The closest thing I found was this:
(image from fuckyeahnostalgicbeauty.tumblr.com)
But that's definitely not it. While the colors, brand and timeframe fit, there is no cat – a detail the inquirer was sure about. She has also contacted Maybelline and Cover Girl and did not receive a response (um, nice customer service, jerks.) I think I may have to buy issues from 2002-2004 just to check those as well. I get plenty of inquiries that most likely will turn out to be unsolvable, but I really thought that with all the information she provided and the fact that this is more recent and not from, say, the '30s, I'd have a pretty good shot at finding the ad. That's why I'm so frustrated at not being able to unearth it.
So my last resort is to ask fellow makeup addicts: Do any of you remember this ad and if so, can you please comment on this post or drop me an email? I would be so happy to have this inquiry solved!
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A while ago I received an email from a woman whose son was playing in an abandoned lot and managed to find an old lipstick tube. What was remarkable about it, she noted, is that it was double-ended. She asked if I could identify it and see if it was worth anything. Fortunately I was able to find some information and correctly identify it, although it wasn't too difficult as the brand name of Tussy was etched on one end.
Tussy was originally owned by perfume and skincare purveyor J. Lesquendieu, which in turn was owned by Lehn & Fink starting in 1929: "Lehn & Fink, a New York based pharmaceutical company established in 1875, was mainly known for household products such as Lysol disinfectant and Pebeco toothpowder. After their purchase of Dorothy Gray, they went on to acquire Lesquendieu (which included Tussy) in 1929."
(images from archives.newyorker.com and ebay.com)
When I was trying to guess the approximate date of this two-sided lipstick I obviously found Tussy ads to be very helpful. I knew it wasn't any earlier than 1940, but then I was also able to rule out 1941 through 1947 by comparing the tube in the pictures sent to me to the ones in the ads.
1941:
(image from ebay.com)
1942:
1943:
(image from ebay.com)
1945:
1947:
(image from hprints.com)
By summer of 1948 Tussy Two in One lipsticks had made their debut, as evidenced by these newspaper ads. Oddly enough I didn't come across any full-sized color magazine ads for these two-in-ones. These are from May 27, 1948 and June 17, 1948, respectively.
(images from news.google.com)
Here's another ad from 1949 that better shows the lipstick and available shades.
(image from news.google.com)
And here's what one looks like in mint condition:
(image from worthpoint.com)
For the holiday season in 1949, Tussy expanded on the double-ended product theme and devised a lipstick and perfume tube, combining their Optimiste perfume with their lipstick of the same name.
(image from news.google.com)
(image from ebay.com)
They repeated the perfume/lipstick combination in late 1952 with their Midnight perfume and lipstick.
(image from ebay.com)
(image from flickr.com)
Interestingly, Dorothy Gray, also owned by Lehn & Fink at this point, released a similar product in 1952 with their Golden Orchid perfume on one end and a lipstick on the other, which was available in four shades.
(images from ebay.com)
Also in 1952, Elizabeth Arden jumped on the double-ended lipstick bandwagon with their "color-over-color" lipstick combinations.
(image from amazingadornments.com)
Tussy was not the first to come up with double-ended products. Two-sided perfume cases were quite popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, and in the 1920s a company named Ripley & Gowen came up with a "tango" compact (a compact with a lipstick or perfume case attached by a chain) that had a double-ended tube containing lipstick on one end and brow pencil on the other.
(images from tri-stateantiques.com)
Brow pencil appears to be an odd choice, but I'm assuming that in order to the maintain the thin, straight brows that were in style in the 20s brow pencil was a necessity – perhaps so important that R & G saw it appropriate to make it the other item besides lipstick in a two-sided case. While others had produced double-sided products, to my knowledge Tussy was among the first companies to come up with a double-ended lipstick. And their interest in two-sided products didn't end in the late 40s, as evidenced by their "Flipsticks" that were introduced in 1962:
(image from myfdb.com)
With the plethora of double-ended beauty items nowadays, I think it's safe to say that Tussy was a pioneer in helping to make them a commonplace product rather than a novelty. Getting back to the original lipstick that was submitted, I can't say it's worth very much given the condition, but it's still interesting from a beauty history perspective. If I found it I would definitely hang onto it.
Do you use double-ended products? I don't because I like to store everything vertically rather than horizontally and it drives me crazy that I can't see both ends!
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Talk about a RAOK (random act of kindness)! Last week a very mysterious person emailed me, saying that she had a bunch of vintage Stila memorabilia, and asked if I would like any of it. She had no room for it anymore but hated the thought of throwing it away. I eagerly responded that I was interested and inquired about pricing. Not only did this marvelous mystery person say that she would give it all to me for free, she even refused reimbursement for shipping! I was, and still am, totally stunned by this act of generosity. And the quality and quantity of the goodies she bestowed upon the museum left me flabbergasted as well.
Without further ado, I introduce the Mystery Stila Lady collection! Whoever you are, I cannot thank you enough!!
Rock the Vote postcard – on the back it had instructions for voting.
Pamphlet (from 1999!):
This was one of my favorites – a postcard set from the 2001 fall collection.
Then there were the workbooks/product guides – I'm assuming these were for Stila employees.
You may recognize this Stila girl – she also appeared on the 2013 holiday palettes, albeit in a different outfit.
Some other great items in the bounty included a cute paper box and silver bag:
I loved everything, obviously, but my favorite item was this 2003 calendar. It's interesting to see how it foreshadows both the 2004 Nordstrom calendar palette collection and the more recent travel palette series.
You may have been wondering where the month of June was. I had to save the best for last. Behold, a Stila mermaid!
My mermaid obsession knows no bounds, so I got heart palpitations when I saw this! Plus, it may be proof that I'm not completely senile in remembering a long-lost Stila paint can that was created in honor of their counters opening in Copenhagen, which I discussed in my post on mermaids in cosmetics ads and packaging. I said that I could have sworn the mermaid was blonde, and here she is! I'm almost positive now that paint can existed and this was the same mermaid used.
Which of these images from the very generous Mystery Stila Lady collection is your favorite? I still can't believe she donated all of this!! I'm both a collector and Stila fanatic, so naturally this is awesome, but what's more is that the Stila girls were what got me collecting makeup in the first place so having these really means a lot.
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It's rare, but occasionally I do get inquiries from people who have stumbled across a vintage item, asking me to identify it and give an idea of what it might be worth. Sometimes I can give a definitive answer, sometimes I can't. Anyway, I thought I'd dig through my inbox and share one of these items with my readers (all 2 of you, ha) from time to time. Today I bring you a very pretty green and gold filigree vintage compact with a peacock on it that, unfortunately, I'm still not able to identify. The person who emailed me with these pictures said it belonged to her great-grandmother, who in her words was a "well-situated lady", so she thinks it may be more high-end (Elizabeth Arden or Estée Lauder).
I have searched everywhere and can't find a compact that had this same peacock on it.
Many other compacts have a similar inner lid mechanism, but that particular clasp and notch seem to be unique.
To my eye, those details most closely resemble Kigu – a London-based company with roots in Budapest. (You can read Kigu's history here.) Here are some examples of this brand's compacts:
(images from etsy.com)
I can't say for sure though, without seeing the top of the inner lid and the bottom of the compact – these may provide additional clues. There's also the matter of what looks to be a little knob on the upper left of the inside of the lid to help keep it closed:
None of the Kigus I've seen have that. I've also looked through the catalogs and archives at the Kigu website, and there was no peacock compact.
Since I really can't say for sure what this is, I'll throw it out to you: does anyone recognize this compact and know for sure the company that made it? I'm so curious and would love to have an answer! I suppose I could submit the pictures to Kigu and see if it's one of theirs.
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