In July of 2009 a portion of a bottle was found in Tinley Creek near one of the old house foundations found west of the cemetery. The title states "Toliet Water" made by "A Avantine & Co - N.Y."
Toilet Water was used as a fragrance in the 1800s. It is similar to Cologne and was used as a skin freshener or splash.
Below is a brief description of these types of bottles from <!-- m -->
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Distinguishing Colognes, Perfumes, Scents, & Toilet WatersCan you tell the difference? Colognes, Perfumes, Scents, & Toilet Waters: (written by Wendy Poch)
For most of us, collectors included, these four terms generally mean one and the same. We see a bottle, whether a new one at a department store counter, or one that is 200 years old in someone's collection, and make comments like "What a beautiful perfume bottle!". People who have been collecting these unique bottles their whole lives are just as guilty at generalizing the terms as is the new collector or passer by at an antique shop or show. And while there is no harm in doing this, there really is a difference in these bottles, both in what they look like and what was inside them. The Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary describes these four terms as follows:
Perfume - A fluid preparation of floral essences or synthetics and a fixative used for scenting.
Toilet Water - A perfumed liquid containing a Higher percentage of alcohol for use in or after a bath as a skin freshener.
Cologne - A perfumed toilet water.
Scent - To yield an odor of some specified kind.
While these explanations may be fine for the scientist in a perfumery lab, they do nothing as far as the collector's world is concerned! So let me give the definitions as found in several different collector's books.
Perfume - A liquid mixture of aromatic spirits with alcohol.
Cologne - Similar to perfume but containing more alcohol so it is not as strong or as long lasting.
Toilet Water - Similar to Cologne but even more diluted. Made be used as a skin freshener or splash.
Scent - Perfume with ammonia salts used for reviving.
Our ancestors did not bathe very often and probably didn't smell that great most of the time. There was no such thing as "deoderant” as we know it today, and taking a bath was really quite a chore. It is no wonder that the perfume and cologne business was so incredibly popular back in the old days! The mixture of the contents dictated the size of the bottle that they were put in.
Scent bottles were generally very small. They usually, but not always, had a metal screw top to keep the ammonia inside the bottle. When the top was taken off, a sharp perfumed ammonia vapor came out which would revive a person who was fainting- These were most frequently used on women and were extremely popular due to those very tight corsets and many layers of clothing women had to wear in those days. Scent bottles were frequently free blown in a wide array of brilliant colors and shapes. By the 1800's they were often mold blown with the most popular colors being greens, blues, and yellows. These often had either the screw top or a metal stopper with a cork on the bottom of it. Scent bottles were often made to fit into one's glove or to be tucked 'into a sleeve for use when needed or to hang on a chain, often as a piece of jewelry, around a young lady’s neck.
Perfume bottles, which are much more con-common beginning in the early 1900's, are mainly found in the more modem collections. There is a very large market for perfume bottles 1900-??9 of all different types and sizes, although (outside of store displays) none are very large. However, a popular form of perfume bottles that were made from approximately 1880 - 1910 are the "Throw-Aways". They contained only a small amount of perfume in them which was usually contained in a tiny glass tube in the center of the bottle. They were often found in gift shops, carnivals., etc.. and were designed to get you to try this long lasting fragrance in hopes that you would buy a bigger bottle. This brings us to colognes. Colognes were often made in the same fragrance as perfumes (as they are today). They come in bigger bottles, but they don't last as long. So, of course, you will have to buy more. Pretty Clever huh! In the antique collector's world colognes make up one of the most popular categories of collecting. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. These include many pontiled figural varieties. They were often very fancy, and have been dubbed "fancy colognes" because these bottles were found on display on one's dresser in a bedroom. They were most popular in the 1800's and were considered a luxury and for some, a symbol of status. Toilet waters are the biggest bottles that you will find. However, many cologne bottles were also used as toilet waters and vice versa. You may find a cologne bottle with a label that marks it as such and then later find the same bottle with a label that says "water for the toilet" on it, or better yet "cologne water for the toilet" - not that this would be at all confusing! There could be may reasons for this such as the glass houses wanting to save money, or a particular form of bottle was so popular that people wanted to have another. No one knows for sure. But while the looks of the bottle might be the same, the contents were different. The fragrance could be similar, but toilet water was incredibly diluted. It was made for splashing on after a bath not just for a dab or two. So you guessed it, you would have to buy a lot of it to keep using it!
Original Source: <!-- m -->
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