Vintage perfume atomizers

Story and photos Susan Eastman antsandtreasures@gmail.com

The Herald Times

Atomizers are bottles with flexible stoppers that pump air into a liquid in order to create a mist. An atomizer reduces liquid to fine droplets and delivers it as an airborn spray. Many, especially perfume and cologne misters, have a flexible ball on a tube that pumps air into the bottle and thus wet mist comes out. What that mist consists of can vary a lot. Today, many people use misters to spray themselves with water to cool off on hot days. In Victorian times, it wasn’t socially acceptable to remove clothing even in hot weather, but misting with light perfumes was an acceptable way of dealing with the heat. At least, the perfume might disguise unpleasant odors.

Moreover, most vintage atomizers were refillable. They were purchased with no liquid in them and intended to have some diluted scent funneled into them as needed. The “perfume” was typically purchased at a local druggist’s shops and decanted into the owner’s own bottles as needed. The bottles for summer scents might be stored empty over the winter or the scent changed to another perfume for winter after washing out the glass bottle.

Vintage atomizers are usually described by the age and type of the glass perfume bottle, although sometimes the “tail” on the squeeze ball is the most eye-catching element of the arrangement. After about 1910, DeVillbiss & Co. of Toledo supplied most atomizers to American glass companies. Sadly, these early squeeze balls were made of rubber, and they all lost resilience over time. Decades-old rubber balls feel hard and don’t work. It is possible to replace them with modern squeeze balls, but most collectors prefer the vintage look to any functionality.

Another area of charm, sometimes overlooked, is the collar on a very old atomizer. The screw-on collars connecting the pump cords to the bottles were usually made of brass. Some had gold or nickel plating, and a few were sterling silver. (Later bottle collars were mostly chrome plated, a substance that doesn’t tarnish.) On atomizers made before WWI, the design of a collar might be elaborately detailed with minute flowers, leaves or feathers. Some collars are even jeweled. However, the collars on very small bottles are not very visible unless the whole item is picked up and turned sideways…as it might be in actual use but not when sitting on dressing table (or on shop display counter). The collars on later atomizers from the 1940s and 1950s are typically quite plain.

One oddity of vintage atomizers is that they spray only in one fixed direction. A single tiny hole in the collar identifies the direction of spray, and old collars were glued to the neck of the glass bottle so they didn’t swivel. One must hold the bottle a particular way to get the benefit of the spray.

Atomizers normally appeared only on dressing-table size perfume bottles, not the miniatures that were intended for purses or pockets. The bulb portion often doubles the amount of space for the whole unit, plus the collars and connectors were often leaky when tilted.

One area of experimentation occurred with the cover on the rubber pump ball. Most commonly, fine silk cloth in the shape of a sock was glued around the ball, and many had long silky fringe as a dandling eye-catcher. These came in a wide range of colors and textures. A few had a visible silk mesh that created an attractive, non-slippery surface. Still other makers moved focus away from the atomizing process by having elaborate pressed-glass designs or unique hand-painted design on the bottle.

Truly antique atomizers, from before the turn of the century, may have some mechanism other than a squeeze balloon to pump the air into the liquid and out the spray head. The late 19th century was a period of rapid innovation, and some Victorian spray bottles were given unusual kinds of pumps. Many were made of finely wrought iron or brass, and when operated, would have some sort of up/down or sideways motion that created a liquid mist.