As you may or may not know, September is National Honey Month. And since bears love honey, Makeup Museum intern Babo Bear is here to round up some honey-infused/bee-related products to help you celebrate during these last few September days. In addition to LUSH's Fair Trade Honey shampoo and Marc Jacobs Honey fragrance shown in the picture above, here are some more recommendations.
Since Babo Bear did such a good job with today's post I am off to get him a honey latte as a treat. Please feel free share your favorite honey products in the comments. 🙂
Let's see what we have in the ol' Makeup Museum mailbag today, shall we? Actually this inquiry came in about 2 years ago (I know, I can't believe I'm just getting to it now) and allowed me to learn more about Peggy Sage, a brand I wasn't all that familiar with. The person who wrote didn't provide any information about where or how she acquired this vintage manicure oil, but I could tell from her email signature that she is Dutch, so that's pretty cool that I had an inquiry all the way from the Netherlands! She did give a picture though.
So off I went in search of information about the company and to try to find an approximate date for the oil. Fortunately Peggy Sage is still around and has a website, where I was able to get a little history. Peggy Sage started in 1925 in the U.S. and was one of the first beauty companies to specialize in nail care. It soon moved to Paris and was very popular there as well. In the 1950s it reached peak popularity, holding its own with Cutex and other similar nail care and cosmetic brands. In 2000 the brand was revived and now has several "concept stores" throughout France and Switzerland. I wish I could find more about Peggy Sage herself (was she even a real person?) but there was scant information about the founder.
As for the bottle of manicure oil, I'm guessing it dates from anywhere between the early '50s through the early '60s. I looked at a plethora of ads and it looks like that bottle shape did not appear until about 1951. Prior to that year, the ads show a more square bottle.
My theory is that a new bottle was introduced in the early '50s to distinguish the brand's new "Crystallin" finish polishes from their regular line of polishes, as the older square bottle shapes were still being used in ads. Only ads for the Crystallin (or "Cristal", as they were known in France) polishes showed the more flared bottle.
Additionally, this ad from 1953 – most likely related to Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in June of that year – boasts several shades housed in the "new plume bottle", which is the same bottle shape as the manicure oil.
So maybe this shape was also used for the manicure oil to distinguish it from their nail polishes, or the oil was meant to be used specifically with the Crystallin polishes. In any case, I'm not sure when the "plume" bottle shape was retired, but it was used at least until 1960, when this Australian commercial for "Fiery Pink" aired. So dramatic!
So that is what I was able to come up with. Do you agree with my theory? And which bottle shape do you prefer? I have to say I'm partial to the "plume" bottle – reminds me of a fancy flared skirt. 🙂
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For the third year in a row I managed to get myself up to NYC to go to the Makeup in NY show, which usually features an exhilarating exhibition of vintage beauty items (see recaps from 2013 and 2014). I wish I could say I had a great time, but truthfully, it was not the best trip. This year the show moved to a very convenient location right across from Penn Station, but it also switched dates – normally the show is towards the end of September, but this year it was the second week of the month, which is horrible for me work-wise as we always have a big quarterly meeting then. Tuesday of that week was spent running around like mad trying to get 2 days of meeting prep condensed into one day due to Labor Day, then Wednesday was the meeting, so Thursday was the only day I could make it to New York. I got to the train station only to find the train was a half hour late, then it proceeded to break down completely in NJ, so I arrived in Manhattan an hour later than expected. I also managed to miss meeting up with the fabulous Meli of Wild Beauty, who happened to be at the show almost at the same time! If I hadn't been so late I may have been able to meet up, but by the time I got there I basically had to make a quick pass through the show and then immediately head back to the train station to get home. Oh, and the train also got held up in NJ on the way back, so I was an hour late coming home as well. So after two hellish days of work and all the train issues, overall I was not pleased, but at least I got there!
Anyway, onto the show. Compared to the past 2 years it was very small. There were only about 10 cases total. I'd estimate that the amount of items was about half of what it's been for the past couple of years, which was a bit disappointing, especially given how annoyed I was by then from dealing with stupid Amtrak. However, I did get quite the surprise which totally made up for everything – keep reading to see what it was. 😉
There was a neat old book listing the types of packaging for various cosmetic items (or "toilet paints").
Vintage compacts are great, but boy do I love the graphics on old powder boxes.
How ridiculously cute is this soap container?!
More powder boxes.
Here's a very nice selection of vintage Guerlain items.
Stendhal – I don't know much about this brand but the packaging sure was fancy.
As I noted in my recap of last year's exhibition, I was a little taken aback that celebrities had their own beauty lines back then. This Josephine Baker stuff is crazy, no?
Now for the surprise that made the annoying trip completely worth it. I MET Jean-Marie Martin Hattemberg. Like, I actually talked to him!! I noticed a well-groomed man wearing a pretty spiffy shirt and a tie with a print of pairs of lips sitting at a table at the entrance to the exhibition. The table had copies of the Ode to the Complexion book that I've been trying to track down, so I asked to buy a copy. He smiled and started writing in it. At first I was puzzled, then it dawned on me that it was HIM!! I couldn't believe I was meeting the man behind these exhibitions, whose exquisite collection has traveled the world and that I've been admiring for years.
Not only did he write a lovely inscription in the book, he asked for my mailing address so he could send me auction catalogs containing vintage items. And he told me I should become a member of the International Perfume Bottle Association, as they include vintage powder boxes, compacts and lipsticks – I had no idea! He also suggested coming to their convention in Portland next April since they have tons of things available for sale. We swapped business cards and I told him a bit about the Makeup Museum…I think he thought I was a dope. I also really wanted to ask for a selfie with him – I felt like I was with a celebrity – but the conversation was already so awkward (thank you, crippling social anxiety) that I didn't. Plus he was gracious enough to autograph my book and chat with me a little so I didn't want to push my luck and bother him more than I already had.
After going through the exhibition I went upstairs to check out some of the booths. I have to say that while the Penn Plaza Pavilion was certainly convenient if you were coming from Penn Station, it was really cramped compared to the previous location, plus the air conditioning wasn't working very well so it was fairly stuffy. Rumor has it the show will move again next year, so I guess they received some negative feedback on the location. Anyway, I had to move quickly so I couldn't take a lot of photos. This creepy face chair got my attention though.
As did these oversize mascara wands – I would totally use these as decor in the Museum!! I almost burst out laughing when I saw them…they reminded me of something out of Pee Wee's Big Adventure (or, if you prefer, the giant underwear bit.)
So that was my trip to the Makeup in NY show. Not as enjoyable as years past, but meeting Mr. Hattemberg was so worth it (although sadly, I have not heard anything from him since.)
I wonder what the exhibition will be next year…can't wait! Hopefully I will have an easier time getting there and back. 🙂
This week school started back up for most college students and I've heard many a parent's tale about their little one's first day this past Monday, so I thought it would be appropriate to share these two Elizabeth Arden ads I came across while researching last week's post on my new (old) compact and lipstick. Enjoy! (The text on the first ad is particularly hilarious.)
The husband and I were wandering around the neighborhood last week and spotted this very cute little vintage store called Bottle of Bread. I didn't see any makeup, but I summoned my courage to ask the owner whether she ever came across vintage compacts or makeup ads. I'm glad I asked because she had several stored away in a back room – she had just moved locations and hadn't put them out yet! So I got to take my pick from a few she had obtained at an estate sale. I settled on this very glam Volupté clutch. I loved all the details – the sharp edges, the brushed silver tone with mirrored sides, the dainty chain and the blue rhinestone clasp.
The inside is chock full of neat little compartments, and looked to be in great condition.
Apparently you could put your cigarettes in this compartment.
There was also a hidden compartment behind the mirror – how cool is that?
Of course I was curious about this particular type of clutch so I set about doing a little research. I found a few that resembled it, including this one which has green rhinestones and a fancy silver buckle, but no chain. The seller says it's from the 1950s so I have some sense of the date of the one I purchased.
I came across many others like this, but most of them were gold-toned with a bar in the front. The mirror didn't have a compartment behind it but rather two small clips for a comb. Other than that, the interior was the same.
I found out that these sorts of clutches were named the "Sophisticase" by Volupté and featured their patented "Swinglok" mechanism. For the most part they didn't have chains but rather black fabric carrying cases. My hunch is that they came out with slightly different models over the years, so that's why mine is a little different than most of the ones I came across online.
I did manage to find one other Sophisticase with a chain, so the one I bought wasn't an anomaly. The seller claims this one is from the '40s though, so I really can't say with certainty which decade mine is from. I'd say it's definitely '40s or '50s, which was when Volupté, along with Evans, dominated the carryall market.
What's even more intriguing was the lipstick that happened to still be inside the bag. The previous owner stashed an Elizabeth Arden lipstick in the compartment. It's a nice tube in excellent condition, but it wasn't the tube that made me curious.
It was the "A" with a pair of wings engraved on the cap that piqued my interest.
I had never seen this motif before so naturally I had to see if there was a story behind it. I found this rather striking ad from the early '40s for Victory Red lipstick (you can read about the original photo here).
Here it is again – the tube looks identical to the one I have except mine doesn't seem to have the wings in red. I don't think it wore off, I think it's because maybe only the Victory Red shade had the wings engraved in red whereas other shades didn't? In any case, while I found these tubes to be the same, I still don't have an exact date. The set above is listed as being from the '50s, whereas the lipstick below is listed as being from the '40s.
So I'm assuming the wings came about to complement the variations of Victory Red, which was created at the start of World War II in 1941, and continued with the introduction of Winged Victory in early 1945*. I'm curious to know whether the V shape formed by the wings was intentional since seemingly every product was advertised with a "V for Victory".
The company continued to use the wing design on many other products after the war was over. If you look really closely at the items featured in these ads, you can make out the wings.
According to the description at Ruby Lane, Chrysler launched a new ad campaign for the Imperial in the January 1959 issue of Vogue with product sponsorship by Elizabeth Arden. The car was available in Arden Pink, which was allegedly Jackie O's favorite lipstick shade, and you could order the car from Vogue directly. Additionally, for $25 you could purchase the exclusive Imperial Travel Case to go in the glove box.
Anyway, the description at Ruby Lane also states that the wings in this case are connected to the bird emblem on the Imperial, as seen on the left in the ad above. I'm not sure I agree, but it's interesting that they continued to use it.
What does all this mean for the lipstick? Well, unfortunately, like the clutch itself, it could be from several decades. (I googled the shade name on the bottom – New Fashion – and turned up nothing.) The shape of the tube was identical to several tubes of Victory Red I came across, but those were listed by the sellers with varying dates, so since I don't know the exact years they were made I can't pinpoint it for the lipstick I have. The ads didn't seem to show those types of tubes either so no help there. As for the wings, I couldn't find a satisfying answer as to their significance and usage throughout the years, but perhaps it's in this book.
So…thoughts? Do you ever come across vintage finds in your town? I gave the store owner my card, so hopefully she'll be in touch with more vintage makeup goodies. 🙂
*The Glamourologist had a post on Elizabeth Arden and wartime makeup so I was hoping there would be some mention of those wings in it, but I keep getting the dreaded "The page you were looking for does not exist" message when I click on the link. I searched both her new site and Facebook page and couldn't find it. I couldn't even find an email address to contact her! But I bet if anyone has information on Elizabeth Arden during wartime, it would be her.
I come across the strangest things when I'm researching vintage makeup. I was looking up items for the summer exhibition and spotted this 1948 Coty ad.
It's fairly unremarkable…until I noticed the colors in the palette shown on the lower left of the ad are incredibly similar to Dior's Les Tablettes de Bastet palette designed by artist Vincent Beaurin in 2013. They're not identical, but both palettes contain a warm golden terracotta shade, a cool medium blue and a bold red.
You can read all about Beaurin's rather complex reasoning behind the colors he chose in my post on the palette. Coty, on the other hand, has a much simpler explanation. The ad indicates that blue is for eye shadow, the red for blush, and the golden tint is for foundation. I doubt that one shade suited all complexions and the red blush and blue eye shadow most likely looked incredibly garish when worn together, but then again, as I noted previously, Beaurin's colors aren't exactly easy to work with either.
Do you see a color resemblance between the two palettes?
Once again I have no recollection of what I was searching for when I unearthed this post featuring 25 exquisite vintage Shiseido ads over at a lovely illustration blog called 50 Watts, but oh, what a find. I picked out a few of my favorites but you really need to check out all of the ads, as they are truly amazing.
I'd give my eye teeth to acquire either this ad or the products featured in it.
Such an ethereal scene…they really don't make illustrated ads like this anymore!
These last two from the '50s take quite a modern, graphic turn.
As you may know, Shiseido has its own museum, so it's not totally surprising that someone was able to get these images. However, even with such a well-preserved history, I was absolutely floored to see an 84-page essay on Shiseido's advertising in the early 20th century, which is linked in the post at 50 Watts. Gennifer Weisenfeld, a professor at Duke, authored "Selling Shiseido: Cosmetics Advertising and Design in Early 20th Century Japan" for MIT's Visualizing Cultures curriculum (which sounds seriously awesome). Because I'm a dork I printed out the whole thing so I can make notes on it as I read. I'm only about halfway through – over 1200 subscriptions in Feedly takes up most of my reading time – but so far it's amazing so do check it out. You also need to set aside an hour or so to take a gander at the image galleries, which include a staggering amount of even more ads, plus images of old stores and gifts from the Camellia Club. And if you want to get really nerdy, you can download the handouts from the course. Enjoy…and remember, as I've been saying for years, there's a place for beauty in academia and museums. This is the best proof I've come across in a while. 🙂
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A few weeks ago I was browsing a farmacia in Rome, trying to determine if there were any good drugstore products I should bring back to the States, when I saw this display. I knew I had seen that image of a red-lipped woman wearing a blindfold before, but where?
Aha! It was at good old hprints.com, where I end up browsing vintage makeup ads for hours. I had assumed it was a long-gone brand since it's not sold in the U.S., but apparently Rouge Baiser is alive and well in other countries.
Rouge Baiser was launched in 1927 in Paris by a French chemist named Paul Baudecroux. Considered to be the first "kiss-proof" lipstick, the original formula was actually so indelible that it was banned from the marketplace, having been declared too difficult to remove. (I don't know who made that decision, but I'm guessing that if they were alive today, they would certainly ban glitter nail polish – talk about hard to remove.) I'm no cosmetic chemist, but here's some more technical information on the original formula if you're interested. According to this article, Baudecroux used "eosin dissolved in propylene glycol to make Rouge Baiser…a strong stain was produced with this lipstick as the eosin was in complete solution when it came in contact with the lips. Some said it was too strong! However, as other chemists also discovered, using propylene glycol was not without its problems. As well as having an unpalatable taste, propylene glycol is affected by changes in the atmosphere – losing water when the air was dry and picking it up when the air had a high humidity – with potential effects on the integrity of the lipstick."
While the original formula was modified, Rouge Baiser still marketed its product as being the no-smear, long-lasting answer to women's lipstick prayers. Several prominent illustrators worked on the ads, including André Edouard Marty:
But in 1949 famed fashion illustrator René Gruau created the iconic image of the blindfolded woman with red lips, which, as my Rome pharmacy photo attests, is still used today. You might remember Gruau from his work with Dior. I think there is a story here on how Gruau came up with the idea for this design, but I can't read French and once again, Google Translate makes no sense.
He came up with several equally chic variations for the brand as well.
(Now here's an odd coincidence: with the exception of Carl Erickson, all of the illustrators I've mentioned here lived quite long, well into their 80s and 90s. Perhaps working on ads for a long-lasting lipstick translated into lasting long themselves.)
Fast-forward to today: From I can piece together, Rouge Baiser is sold only in France and Italy. It was acquired in 1994 by the Deborah Group, an Italian company that dates back to 1903. To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the brand, in 2007 a series of lipsticks featuring Gruau's illustrations was released in France. Called "L'Authentique", the line consisted of reissued shades in a matte, long-lasting texture meant to mimic the original formula. Unsurprisingly, "L'Authentique" was the preferred lipstick of the ever stylish Audrey Hepburn in the '50s.
And now I am very sad since I realized I should have bought some. In looking at the photo I took more closely, you can see that the packaging with Gruau's illustrations was available (I guess it's permanent and not limited-edition). I was just so distracted by the image on the display itself I didn't even look at the products! For shame.
What do you think? For those of you living in the U.S., do you think we should start a campaign to bring it here or is it not worthy? I personally want it for the packaging alone!
I thought today would be appropriate to share some over the top headwear in makeup ads since the upcoming Easter holiday reminded me of Easter bonnets. I was also inspired by the recently released MAC/Philip Treacy collection, which I'll get to shortly. I invite you check out some strange forms of headwear in beauty ads, both vintage and contemporary. Because I'm still a little wiped out from a short but jam-packed trip to Rome, I won't be providing very much commentary nor will I explore the significance of crazy head adornments in advertising, but I hope you enjoy these regardless. 🙂
First up: flowers. Obviously, featuring florals in a cosmetics ad isn't too out of left field, but there are definitely some more avant-garde ads out there that go way beyond a basic floral crown or one bloom tucked behind the model's ear.
I found it hilarious that this ad is for "natural" looking makeup because, you know, nothing goes better with a natural look than an overly elaborate floral arrangement sitting on your head. Too funny.
Now let's get into the slightly weirder ones, shall we? From feathers to birds' nests to lampshades, marketing directors seem to love putting random stuff on ladies' heads to sell cosmetics.
Which one is your favorite? For me, Dior's spring 2014 ad is pretty spectacular, but in terms of sheer weirdness, the Charles of the Ritz ad with all those poofs takes the cake in my opinion.
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.
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.
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.
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?
(image from moviestarmakeover.com)
(image from pinterest.com)
(image from pinterest.com)
