"Using the Powder Room" and "Powdering your Nose"
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Face powder is a cosmetic that is used to beautify our faces, originating in ancient Egypt, and had a variety of social uses in different cultures throughout the years. In modern times, face powder is typically used to brighten, even out the complexion and contour the face.
During the Victorian era, powder was inexpensive and easy to make at home and often considered medicinal. It was scooped out of a cotton bag and dabbed on the face, sometimes using a rabbit's foot as a powder brush.
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Around 1865 Henry Tetlow, who was working for a soap company at the time, decided to run his own business as a perfumer and soap maker. His discovery of zinc oxide as a safe base for face powders became his legacy in the cosmetic industry.
During this time most face powders in the US included lead and arsenic and some were downright poisonous. Tetlow discovered that using zinc oxide as the main base for face powders was harmless and the powder retained its color. Best of all, zinc oxide was cheap, allowing women who were not able to afford expensive rice powders, to purchase a safe, quality powder.
Tetlow commercialized his powder formula and sales of his powder products were so popular that he stopped manufacturing soap and focused solely on face powders, along with other toiletries and perfumes.
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Advertisement and powder box of Tetlow's Gossamer.
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Tetlow never patented his zinc oxide formula and if he had, it's probable that the Tetlow name would have held a more prominent place on the list of successful cosmetic companies.
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In the late 1890s and early 1900s, the Victorian natural look was losing popularity as the theater actresses needed better cosmetics. Theaters were becoming electrified and the performers were under the spotlights, literally in the limelight, and they needed to accentuate their features.
A German actor named Carl Baudin is credited with the invention of greasepaint as he mixed lard with zinc, yellow ochre (a natural clay) and vermilion (a brilliant red pigment made from mercury sulfide known as cinnabar).
The actors soon began to promote their theatrical cosmetics and the use of facial products gradually spread, as ladies often followed the trend of the popular theater actresses. The growing acceptance of cosmetics meant it was no longer limited to mostly actresses and ladies of the evening and so more and more cosmetic companies were formed.
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Actress Sarah Bernhardt was featured in an 1890 Jules Cheret poster for La Diaphane poudre de riz.
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Face powders were one of the more popular cosmetic products used around the 1900s and as they grew in popularity, the packaging of the ornate cardboard powder boxes began reassuring women that the powder was safe to use. Many companies detailed the quality and results of using their product on the bottom of their cardboard powder boxes (see photo below).
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During this same time, ladies no longer had to use a rabbit's foot to apply their face powders. Large swansdown or lambswool powder puffs could be purchased separately and some powder boxes included a puff.
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Examples of powder puffs.
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Although a lady did not bring her powder box with loose powder to a dinner party or on a date, she was still able to powder her face as needed. She could discreetly use a “Papier Poudre,” a small booklet with tear off powdered pages that could be slipped into her handbag for facial touch-ups. Photographed below is an example of the Mennen's Vanity Papers for these touch-ups on the go.
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Some early powder boxes had unusual shapes, sometimes resembling a sarcophagus (pictured below). As machine packaging replaced the assembly line work in the 1920s, round and square shaped cardboard boxes became the standard shapes.
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There was no legislation in place in the early 20th century to assess the ingredients and the side effects of mass produced manufactured cosmetics, especially face powders. These concerns about lead based powders resulted in the passing of the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act to regulate the ingredients and to ensure their safe use.
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While there were dozens of themes from sports, animals and outdoor scenes, the dominating theme of the early boxes were flowers and ladies.
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Not much is known about the artists whose work adorned the highly detailed and art deco looking powder boxes of the 1920-30s. It's assumed that in-house artists who were employed by the cosmetic companies were responsible for the graphics. However, Perfume Passage has displays of powder boxes where the artists can be identified.
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Collectors are familiar with the many Coty perfumes such as Emeraude, L'Origan and Muguet. In addition to fragrances, when Francois Coty set up his company in 1904, he also began developing top quality powders, soaps and toiletries.
During this time, most powders were chalky, gritty, and were not as fine as they are today. Coty wanted to create a machine-milled powder that would outperform his competition and his first face powder was created in 1914.
Leon Bakst, the costume designer for the Ballets Russes, a traveling ballet company based in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 in Europe and North and South America, was hired by Coty to design packaging for the face powder. His first powder boxes with the iconic image of powder puffs with dark handles were originally created in leather with gold leaf accents.
The trademark for the powder puff design was registered in 1922, several years after it had already been in use. By 1925 an estimated 36 million women were using Coty face powders worldwide. When Coty's popular Airspun face powder was released in 1935, they used Bakst’s powder puff design, except it was packaged in a less expensive cardboard box designed by Georges Draeger.
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1935 Ad for Coty "Air Spun" face powder.
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Over the years, the well-know Airspun powder could be purchased in other ornate boxes, but it was their iconic powder puffs graphic that has endured throughout the years. The same design was also used on the containers that held Coty's pressed powder compacts in the 1930-40s.
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Coty powder boxes with different graphics.
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The Andrew Jergens company from Cincinnati, Ohio was a soap and cosmetics manufacturer established in 1881. They acquired the John H. Woodbury company and the Eastman Perfume Company of Philadelphia and expanded their products to include face powders, perfumes and lotions, many under the Woodbury name.
Yes, Jergens is the same company that produces “Jergens Lotion.” Their formula purchased from Eastman was an instant success and rocketed Jergens to the top of the growing skin care industry in the early 1900s.
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Woodbury's Facial Powder, a Jergens product.
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During WWII, many cosmetic advertisements promoted powders and patriotism. According to several articles on fashion and beauty, it was a woman's patriotic duty to look her best at all times as the men were fighting on the battlefields. One phrase that appeared often was that "morale was a woman's business," and these articles advised women on how to be wives, mothers and factory workers while remaining attractive and cheerful.
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Jergens wasn’t the only cosmetic company that used patriotic themes in their advertising, but they put an imaginative spin on their face powders when well known pin-up artist Alberto Vargas was hired to design an attractive face powder box pictured below. Their powder came in five shades developed by couturier Madam Alix Gres, and ads for the powder encouraged women to be Vargas' pin-up girl (see advertisement below). Women could purchase a box of Jergens face powder and feel like she was assisting the war efforts at the same time!
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Ad for Jergens Vargas powder, Be his Pin-up Girl! and the artwork created for the powder box.
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Valmor was a Chicago-based cosmetic company founded in 1926 that targeted African American consumers. Rose and Morton Neumann opened their business when Morton, a chemist, realized an untapped market for cosmetics and toiletries for African Americans.
Valmor had several brands including Lucky Brown, King Novelty, Madame Jones and Famous Products. All of their brands were known for their packaging and advertisements, featuring illustrations and photographs of African American men and women by well-known artists.
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Their products included perfumes, skin creams, powders and hair gels and were sold through mail order and door to door sales. They also sold blues records, books and strange novelty items. Today, collectors search for their powder boxes, tins and unused labels as the packaging graphics were distinctive, vibrant and often sexual in nature.
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A 2015 exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center, Love for Sale: The Graphic Art of Valmor, included many company products, detailing the history of the business and two of the company's African-American illustrators, Charles C. Dawson and Jay Jackson.
Neumann did not give his graphic designers credit for their original illustrations on his products, and it took years for several of his artists to be recognized for their artistic contributions.
Dawson received a degree from the School at the Art Institute of Chicago where he was a founding member of Chicago's first African-American artists collective (The Arts and Letter Society). After serving in WWI, he returned to Chicago and worked as an advertising illustrator and an organizer of several African-American artist exhibitions.
According to the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Dawson was the only African-American artist to play a role in the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress World's Fair, producing a mural that was on display in the Hall of Social Science.
Dawson also provided illustrated advertisements for beauty schools, including Annie Turnbo Malone's Poro College in St. Louis.
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This Valmor 1946 advertisement for Sweet Georgia Brown face powder promised that the product would help lighten darker complexions.
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Before Sweet Georgia Brown was a line of cosmetic products, it was a snappy tune written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard.
“NO GAL MADE HAS GOT A SHADE
ON SWEET GEORGIA BROWN,
TWO LEFT FEET, OH, SO NEAT,
HAS SWEET GEORGIA BROWN!”
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Postcards with face powder theme.
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In 1907, Carl Weeks formed the Florian Company to manufacture cosmetics and the company was renamed Armand around 1915. He revolutionized the face powder market by combining cold cream into his face powders.
His products were marketed as “Armand's complexion and cold cream powders in the little pink and white hat boxes.” There was usually a silhouette of a woman's head on the lid of the boxes.
By 1927 Armand was the leading seller of face powder in the US, outselling Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden at the time.
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Tweed by Lentheric (pictured above) is a floral woody musk fragrance for women launched in 1933. It's been noted that Tweed was produced for the US market and in France the product was called Risque Tout, but the fragrances shared the same composition, bottle and packaging. The Tweed powder box is 3-1/4" and is still sealed in cellophane.
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Edna Wallace Hopper was born in the 1870s and was a stage and silent film actress who also provided beauty advice in newspapers in the 1920s. She was known as the "eternal flapper."
Hopper was one of the earliest stage actors to have a facelift and had the operation filmed and then made personal appearance tours in the 1920s showing the film and providing beauty tips! The American Home Products company produced a successful line of beauty products called Edna Wallace Hopper Cosmetics.
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The Lander company from New York made this 4" round powder box that included a small perfume bottle with the scent Truly Yours under plastic. Charles H. Oestreich founded the company in 1921 and they produced novelty perfume bottles, adult and children's bath products. Today Lander is owned by Surefil, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan and their 139 products are sold in over 40 countries.
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Produced during the 1930s, the bold colors of this Hi-Hat powder box has an art deco look to it. The silhouetted chorus girls on the box are reminiscent of the women who danced at nightclubs in the 1920-30s.
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The E.N. Rowell Company from Batavia, New York was a box making company that opened in 1888. They manufactured and designed some of the most beautiful cosmetics packaging in the 1920s. This catalog is featured on IPBA member Joan Renner's blog "The Powder Room," and was used by company representatives as they tried to sell their packaging to cosmetic manufacturers.
Rowell was famous for killing the lover of his first wife in their home in 1893. The case was a national sensation at the time, and although he was charged with manslaughter, a jury found him not guilty.
The box factory grew into one of Batavia's largest businesses and was run by his second wife after Rowell's death in 1929.
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Le Narcisse Bleu by Mury is a floral fragrance for men and women and was launched in 1925. The beautiful graphics are carried out for the perfume bottle box (pictured above) and the powder box (pictured below).
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The powder boxes produced by a variety of companies in France, Spain, Argentina and Portugal often had more detailed graphics and designs than those sold in the US. The artists of these powder boxes were also generally unknown, but the variety produced and the stunning graphics, appeal to both perfume and compact collectors.
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This loose powder packet of Chulona brand polvos (powder) shows a beautiful woman wearing a Spanish Mantilla haircomb.
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This green Pinaud powder box called 612, came in several shades.
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Three Flowers (1915) was one of the less expensive fragrances in the Richard Hudnut product line. It included more than three flowers essences and like other Hudnut fragrances, it was also used to scent toilet waters, sachets, talcs and of course face powders. Their shades included: White, Natural, Rose, Brunette (Rachel) and Parisian (Dark Brunette).
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In the 1930s, Krank, a Minneapolis company, made powder boxes and compacts with this silhouette.
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Collectors of face powder boxes are familiar with the shades of powder that were contained in the boxes. In the early 1900s, the loose powder usually came in three shades—Blanche (white), Naturelle (pink) and Rachel (cream). There are several stories about the mystery name of Rachel that was used as a shade of face powder.
According to cosmeticsandskin.com, Elisabeth Rachel Felix (1821-1858), was a French actress who took the stage name of Rachel. She was described as one of the greatest French actresses in the world and was associated with grace and beauty. It was understandable then, that her name might be associated with a beauty product. Stage makeup used in the 1840s, during Rachel‘s time, was powder-based. Rachel, a light cream colored face powder was used primarily in artificial light in the theater.
With the arrival of greasepaint in the 1870s, the link between the actress and the color began to be lost in theatrical makeup. However, in the early 1900s when powder became more acceptable for general makeup, shade names used in the theater crossed over into common usage.
Some sources suggest that the powder color was not named after the actress Rachel, but rather after Sarah Rachel Leverson, also known as Madame Rachel.
Leverson was one of many sellers of "beauty aids" throughout London in the late 19th century. As usual, these products were based on secret ingredients known only to her. The story goes that as part of her sales pitch, she told potential customers that they could marry rich noblemen if they used her products!
Her tall tales led to complaints, convictions of fraud and she ended up dying in prison. It was her notoriety that probably led some people to associate the Rachel shade with her, even suggesting that she named it herself.
The product lines listed in her pamphlet “Beautiful for Ever," did not show any face powders with the name Rachel. She did make face powders but these were named Arab Bloom Powder, Favorite of the Harem’s Pearl White, Albanian Powder and Youth and Beauty Bloom.
So while this makes a great story about the powder shade Rachel, this claim seems to be false!
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- Around 1770 the use of cosmetics was so widespread in England that it's been said (not proven) that laws were passed stating that all women, no matter the age or profession, that tried to seduce a man into marriage by using scents, wigs, face paint or even false teeth and hair, would incur a penalty. The marriage would then be annulled!
- In the 17th century, egg shells were ground with water to make a face powder.
- 18th Century women whitened their complexion with white lead based powder.
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- Too much “slap” was another theater term for slapping on the greasepaint and a lady could be condemned as a slapper!
- In the early 1900s the United Drug company's products were sold under the Rexall name and by 1913 they manufactured over 70,000 pounds of face powder annually.
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- According to information in a 1933 American Perfume & Essential Oil Review magazine, a well-known Bulgarian citizen was arrested on charges of smuggling face powder from Romania into the country. Authorities found nearly 8,000 cases of face powders!
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- The word make-up originated in the theater as actors and actresses were “putting on a face" to pretend to be someone they weren't. Max Factor made the phrase make-up popular in the 1920s with his product line called "Society Make-up."
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Perfume Passage Foundation is dedicated to preserving the history, beauty, and artistry of perfume bottles, compacts, ephemera and related vanity items. The Foundation seeks to educate and inspire visitors by illuminating the connection between perfume and the human experience.
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We will be reopening soon with the following offerings.
Types of tours include:
- Private docent-guided tours
- Group tours
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Symphony of Scents and Sounds
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