It does not matter if you are selling perfume or paint. Innovative ideas are necessary to launch new products and to increase sales of old favorites. Sometimes though, the idea can become so successful that the innovator is caught off guard. This was the case with Crown’s bijou bottle – a tiny bottle which unexpectedly became an enormous best seller.
In 1889 Crown introduced miniatures of their best selling products, Crown Lavender Pocket Salts and Crab Apple Blossoms. The demand for these 2” jewels “…has been quite phenomenal—more so, in fact, than (Crown), strictly speaking, cared for, their main object being, not so much the profit of these small bottles, which are expensive to get up, as the idea that they serve as pioneers of the larger size, of which they are an exact facsimile.” [22] Crown’s bijou bottles may possibly be the earliest commercial miniature perfume bottles.
Bottles are 2.25″ /5.7 cm tall
The center bottle is hallmarked A.W. Pennington, Birmingham, 1903
Striking store displays had two dozen miniature green bottles of Crown Lavender Salts on a show card with a black background and raised white lettering. A second show card with a red background and raised white lettering held two dozen clear bijou bottles of Crab Apple Blossoms.
In England, each bijou bottle was priced at 3d. In the United States, advertisements requested one to send stamps worth 12 cents for a bijou bottle. Retailers would order bijou bottles in fragrances that corresponded with their own needs and the preferences of their customers.
In later years, these bijou bottles would be placed in silver holders and kid leather pouches. In one fine and rare example, a double pouch held two bijou bottles. Customers would mix and match Crown perfumes with Crown Lavender Salts.
This rare double pocket case is 3.5″ / 9 cm long
This silver hinged case was worn on the finger and discreetly placed inside a glove.
S. Blanckensee & Sons Ltd., 1911
[22] Chemist and Druggist. 14 December 1889, 828.
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