Collecting: Perfume Nips & Perfume Typers

Perfume nips—also called perfume “typers”—are among the most charming little survivors of early twentieth-century fragrance marketing. These minute single-use samples were made as slender sealed vials, first of glass and later often of plastene, a clear early plastic. Each held only a trace of perfume, yet allowed a customer to experience an otherwise costly French extract before committing to a full bottle. To use one, the wearer carefully snapped off an end and dabbed the fragrance onto the wrist, behind the ear, or onto a handkerchief. Their fragile, jewel-like form and colorful identification system make them especially appealing to perfume collectors today.

Two of the best-known names in this miniature perfume world were Nipola Products Company and Nips, Inc. Both repackaged fashionable imported perfumes in affordable sample form, bringing prestigious French fragrances within reach of people who might never have purchased a large presentation bottle. These samples were not merely giveaways; they were often sold individually, commonly for ten cents, or collected in assortments. They represent an early, clever form of perfume sampling—one that made fragrance discovery inexpensive, portable, and a little bit magical.

Perfume nips were not confined to drugstores, cosmetics counters, or mail-order packets; from the 1920s through the 1970s, many were dispensed from perfume vending machines. These machines made fragrance sampling quick, affordable, and wonderfully accessible, allowing a shopper to choose a tiny sealed vial for as little as twenty-five cents, although more exclusive scents and specialty offerings could cost several dollars—sometimes as much as $5.00. Their usefulness as a promotional tool was quickly recognized as well. Businesses and advertisers used the miniature samples as giveaways, placing a fragrant novelty directly into the hands of potential customers. Whether bought from a machine or received as an advertising premium, a perfume nip offered a small but memorable introduction to a scent, and its tiny size made it easy to tuck into a handbag, carry while traveling, or share with a friend.

NIPOLA PRODUCTS CO

Nipola Products Company was founded in 1925 by Arthur T. Sinykin in St. Paul, Minnesota. The company became well known for placing celebrated imported perfumes into its tiny ampules, while also offering its own branded scents. Among its original creations were Pagan Princess, Swee-Tone, and Ramona. 

Nipola’s most memorable fragrance was undoubtedly Lucky Lindy, “The Essence of Luck,” a patriotic novelty perfume named for aviation hero Charles Lindbergh following his 1927 transatlantic flight. The name was registered with the United States Patent Office that same year. Stories have circulated that Nipola may have been connected with a bootlegging operation during Prohibition, although this is difficult to verify; whatever the truth of the tale, the company achieved considerable recognition in the perfume-sample trade.

NIPS, INC

Nips, Inc., of New York, began selling its tiny perfume nips in 1921, making it one of the earlier specialists in the field. Its ampules contained rebottled French perfume extracts and were originally made of glass, with plastene versions appearing later. Nips were sold singly and in charming multi-sample assortments, first in small cardboard cylinders and later in Lucite boxes. These sets gave the customer a miniature perfume wardrobe: several fashionable fragrances to try, compare, and enjoy at a modest cost.

A particularly useful feature of Nips, Inc. samples was their color-coding system. The company identified many fragrances by colored paper labels or painted vial ends, with the colors corresponding to an accompanying booklet or chart. Some perfumes were marked with two colors, one at each end of the ampule. For example, a nip colored pale green at one end and white at the other represented Caron’s Fleurs de Rocaille. Collectors should remember, however, that these codes were not necessarily permanent. As popular tastes changed and the selection of perfumes shifted over time, Nips, Inc. revised its color assignments. A color combination is therefore an excellent clue, but it should be compared with a period booklet whenever possible.

A small Nips, Inc. booklet can be one of the most helpful tools for identifying otherwise unmarked perfume ampules. It matches each fragrance to its distinctive painted-end or label color combination, allowing the original perfume name to be identified from a tiny vial that may carry no printed name at all. The colors should be read in the same manner as the booklet: a single color may identify one perfume, while two colors—one at each end—identify another.

When using the list, the perfume launch dates shown in parentheses provide a useful starting point, not an exact manufacturing date for the nip itself. A 1921 perfume, for example, might have continued to be offered in Nips assortments for many years afterward; the sample could therefore date from the late 1920s, 1930s, or even later rather than from its original introduction.

To estimate the age of a particular booklet or group of nips, look for the newest perfume included in its listing. That newest launch date provides the earliest possible date for the assortment, since the booklet could not have listed a fragrance before it existed. In most cases, this is a more reliable guide than the date of any one older perfume in the set. The vial material, packaging style, typography, and whether the samples are glass or plastene can then help narrow the date further.

• Light green: Bellodgia by Caron (1927)
• Dark lavender & white: French Cancan by Caron (1937)
• Yellow & white: Chanel Gardenia (1925)
• Purple and white: Chanel No. 5 (1921)
• Yellow: Emeraude by Coty (1918)
• Orange: Evening in Paris by Bourjois (1928)
• Light green & white: Fleurs de Rocaille by Caron (1933)
• Light brown and white: L'Aimant by Coty (1927)
• Navy blue and white: L'Heure Bleue by Guerlain (1912)
• Royal blue: L'Origan by Coty (1905)
• Light blue: My Sin by Lanvin (1925)
• Dark green and white: Nuit de Noel by Caron (1922)
• Orchid: Orchidee Bleue by Corday (1925)
• Medium green: Paris by Coty (1921)
• Medium blue: Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant (1912)
• Dark brown: Shalimar by Guerlain (1925)
• Orange and white: Springtime in Paris by Bourjois (1931)
• Coral: Toujours Moi by Corday (1924)

Harper’s Bazaar also offered perfume packets containing miniature “bottlettes,” with the fragrances rebottled by Nips, Inc. These packets gave readers an inexpensive way to sample a curated selection of fashionable perfumes at home, much like a portable fragrance counter. Each tiny sealed vial was identified by Nips’ familiar painted color code, allowing the wearer to match the bottlette to its perfume name in the enclosed guide. The assortment is especially interesting to collectors because it connects a leading fashion magazine with the popular American perfume-sample trade, showing how beauty advertising, editorial influence, and fragrance marketing worked together to introduce readers to desirable scents.

• White: Bois des Iles by Chanel (1926)
• Light yellow: Directoire by Charles of the Ritz (1948)
• Lavender: My Love by Elizabeth Arden (1949)
• Bright green: Arpege by Lanvin (1927)
• Purple: Tabu by Dana (1930)
• Coral: Beau Belle by Bourjois (1949)
• Light blue: Nosegay by Dorothy Gray (1938)
• Shocking pink: Shocking by Schiaparelli (1936)
• Chartreuse green: Indiscret by Lucien Lelong (1935)
• Gilt: Golden Shadows by Parfum Evyan (1950)
• Dark green: L'Origan by Coty (1905)
• Luggage tan: Tweed by Lentheric (1933)
• Bright yellow: Rallet No. 1 by Marie Earle (1928)
• Bright red: Danger by Ciro (1938)
• Shell pink: Miss Dior by Christian Dior (1947)
• Silver: Apropos by Anjou (1940)
• Orange: Shalimar by Guerlain (1925)
• Royal blue: Five O'Clock by Gourielli (1947)
• Bronze: Intoxication by D'Orsay (1938)
• Black: Midnight by Tussy (1949)
• Turquoise: Moment Supreme by Jean Patou (1929)
• Dark red: Command Performance by Helena Rubinstein (1947)

Nips, Inc. presented its tiny perfume ampules with an air of glamour, refinement, and romance. The accompanying booklet did far more than identify the colors of the samples: it gave each scent a little personality through vivid, sometimes delightfully extravagant descriptions. Bellodgia was “the sublime fragrance of the carnation flower,” while Emeraude promised “emerald richness and brilliance expressed in fragrance.” Evening in Paris became “the Perfume of Romance,” capturing the glamour and mystery of Paris after dark, and Shalimar was described as a rich, exotic blend embodying the lure and mystery of the East. Other descriptions were equally evocative: Chanel Gardenia was flower-fresh and romantic “as moonlight and distant music”; L’Heure Bleue suggested the quiet magic of twilight; Orchidee Bleue was “gaily wicked,” flirtatious yet coy; and Toujours Moi was a fragrance that whispered with lasting charm. The language reflects the early 1930s ideal of perfume as an invisible but expressive accessory—capable of making a woman seem sophisticated, alluring, youthful, mysterious, or softly feminine.

The booklet also offered a fascinating glimpse into period perfume etiquette. Nips encouraged women to apply perfume to the person rather than to clothing, advising dabs on the ears, neck, fingertips, wrists, eyebrows, and even the lips, where it was said to help lipstick remain smooth and set. It suggested scenting the hair by adding perfume to the final rinse, applying a little to a brush or comb, and pinning a perfumed fluff of cotton inside lingerie so that the selected fragrance would gently diffuse through the day. Perfume could also be used to enliven artificial flowers, scent stationery and handkerchief boxes, and complement furs—particularly with richer Oriental-style perfumes rather than florals.

Throughout, Nips, Inc. strongly promoted the prestige of genuine French perfume. Its booklet maintained that “women of discrimination” chose French fragrances, describing quality perfume as comparable to rare gems and fine old wines: something that could comfort, stimulate, and express one’s personality. The wearer was encouraged to change perfume according to mood, activity, or climate, and to select the scent that best expressed herself. In this charmingly persuasive view, perfume was not a trivial finishing touch; it was a sign of taste, individuality, memory, and social polish.

Advice on where to put perfumes, and perfume in general, plus the insistence that French perfumes are the best to be worn.

 

PERFUME TYPERS

Perfume Typers were elaborate fragrance-sampling kits designed to help a woman discover the sort of perfume that most “became” her. Usually containing forty to sixty or more miniature scents, they were arranged in fitted hard-plastic cases that could later be reused as cigarette cases once the samples had been emptied. These attractive sets were marketed through women’s magazines such as McCall’s and Home, either sold to readers or offered as promotional premiums. More than a collection of samples, the Typer was presented as a personal guide to fragrance selection—a private, at-home perfume consultation.

The accompanying 32-page booklet, titled Your Perfume Guide, explained “The Power of Perfume,” “How to Use Perfume,” and “How to Type Yourself for Perfume.” It also contained an index of perfume manufacturers and a useful index of individual perfumes. Its central idea was that all perfumes could be divided into seven basic types: Fruity Blend, Spicy Bouquet, Oriental Blend, Single Floral, Floral Bouquet, Forest Blend, and Modern Blend. The set included seven separate capsules, one for each family, containing five unlabeled nips representing popular perfumes of that particular type. The wearer was meant to try the groups and notice which one or two families seemed especially flattering or appealing.

The categories themselves offer a wonderful period interpretation of fragrance. Single Florals emphasized the character of one flower, such as rose, violet, gardenia, or lily of the valley, while Floral Bouquets combined several blossoms in fragrances ranging from light and delicate to rich and heady. Oriental Blends were described as exotic scents with warm musk, amber, and civet undertones, sometimes floral and sometimes deep with resinous richness. Modern Blends referred to the then-fashionable aldehydic perfumes—clear, cool, polished scents whose distinctive character was not found directly in nature but, as the booklet charmingly put it, “discovered in a test tube.”

Forest Blends, also called woody or mossy perfumes, included scents with sandalwood, rosewood, cedar, grassy, ferny, chypre, or fougère effects. Spicy Bouquets featured the pungent warmth of clove, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, carnation, and geranium. Fruity Blends ranged from bright, airy citrus effects to warmer peach-like notes. Although this seven-family system is much simpler than modern perfume classification, it gave the customer an approachable way to understand the broad character of perfumes and to begin recognizing her own preferences.

The first samples were deliberately left unnamed. According to the booklet, this prevented the wearer from being influenced by a perfume’s price, reputation, or the opinions and experiences of others. Once she had determined which fragrance type “favored” her, she could turn to the perfume index to learn which famous named scents belonged to that family. The kit then provided a “Bonus Box” of thirty additional Nips Bottlettes, printed with their well-known perfume names, allowing her to explore recognizable brands across several fragrance types.

A complete Perfume Typer contained sixty-five nips in all. The samples were slender plastene tubes, sealed at both ends; the user snapped off the tips to release the perfume for application. The thirty labeled bonus nips were housed in their own small snap-lidded plastic box, which fitted inside a larger plastic case containing the seven typed capsules and the booklet. This was then presented in a two-piece cardboard gift box with tissue paper and a separate “How To Use Nips” instruction sheet. The only maker’s address appears on the first page of the guide: “For additional copies send 25 cents to Perfume Typer, Box 630, Mount Vernon, N.Y. Printed in U.S.A.”

Here is a list I have compiled of perfumes that were included in the Nips and perfume typer kits:

• Amber - Charbert (1936)
• Aphrodisia - Faberge (1932)
• Arpege - Lanvin (1927)
• Ballerina - Marie Earle (1940)
• Beau Belle - Bourjois (1949)
• Beau Catcher - Suzanne/Vigny (1952)
• Bellodgia - Caron (1927)
• Black Satin - Angelique (1946)
• Blue Carnation - Roger et Gallet (1937)
• Blue Grass - Elizabeth Arden (1934)
• Breathless - Charbert (1933)
• Bright Secret - Tussy (1954)
• Cabochard - Gres (1958)
• Carnation - Mary Chess (1935)
• Chanel No 5 - Chanel (1921)
• Chypre - Coty (1905)
• Climax - Blanchard (1945)
• Cocktail Dry - Jean Patou (1928)
• Coeur Joie - Ricci (1946)
• Colony - Jean Patou (1937)
• Command Performance - Helena Rubinstein (1947)
• Confetti - Lentheric (1939)
• Confidante - de Monel (1942)
• Conflict - Blanchard (1945)
• Connoisseur - Lanier (1954)
• Consent- Charbert (1951)
• Contraband - Tussy (1950)
• Cotillion - Avon (1933)
• Crepe de Chine - F. Millot (1925)
• Crown Jewel - Prince Matchabelli (1945)
• Cub - Le Galion (1953)
• Danger - Ciro (1938)
• Dans la Nuit - Worth (1922)
• Dark Brilliance - Lentheric (1946)
• Debutante - Daggett & Ramsdell (1956)
• Demi- Jour - Houbigant (1932)
• Desert Flower - Shulton (1947)
• Devastating - Anjou (1943)
• Diorama - Christian Dior (1949)
• Directoire - Charles of the Ritz (1948)
• Discovery - Moneau (1943)
• Divine - D'Orsay (1946)
• Djer Kiss - Kerkoff (1908)
• Dogwood - Roger et Gallet (1941)
• Dona Sol - Renoir (1939)
• Doux Jasmin - Ciro (1923)
• Duchess of York - Prince Matchabelli (1929)
• Early American Old Spice- Shulton (1937)
• Eau de Fleurs - de Léonid Lescinskis (1949)
• Ecusson - Jean d’Albret (1946)
• Electrique - Max Factor (1954)
• Elizabethan - Mary Chess (1937)
• Emeraude - Coty (1918)
• Emir - Dana (1935)
• En Avion - Caron (1929)
• Enchanting Menace - Evyan (1950)
• Encore - Beauty Counselor (1953)
• Endearing - Bourjois (1946)
• Envoy - Lanier (1954)
• Epice - Patricia Murphy (1950)
• Escapade- Shulton (1954)
• Esperanto - Lanier (1955)
• Etoile Filante - Henri Bendel (1928)
• Evening Capers - Donat (1953)
• Evening in Paris - Bourjois (1928)
• Evening Star - Blanchard (1949)
• Fabulous - Charbert (1945)
• Fantastique - D'Orsay (1953)
• Farnesiana - Caron (1947)
• Femme - Marcel Rochas (1944)
• Femme du Jour - Parfums Corday (1924)
• Figurine - Dorothy Gray (1954)
• Fille d’Eve - Nina Ricci (1950)
• Five O’clock - Helena Rubinstein/Gourielli (1947)
• Flair - Yardley (1952)
• Fleurs d’Amour - Roger et Gallet (1902)
• Fleur de Feu - Guerlain (1948)
• Fleurs de Rocaille - Caron (1933)
• Fleur Sauvage - Germaine Monteil (1953)
• Folie de Minuit - Lanier (1952)
• French Can Can - Caron (1936)
• Gardenia - Chanel (1925)
• Gardenia - Mary Chess (1932)
• Gardenia- Patricia Murphy (1957)
• Golden Chance - Harriet Hubbard Ayer (1948)
• Golden Shadows - Evyan (1950)
• Gold Promise - Avon (1947)
• Gold Satin by Angelique (1949)
• Green Orchid - Patricia Murphy (1957)
• High Heels - Park & Tilford (1947)
• Indiscret - Lucien Lelong (1935)
• Intoxication - D'Orsay (1938)
• Jealousy - Blanchard (1932)
• L'Aimant - Coty (1927)
• La Rosa - Patricia Murphy (1957)
• L’Heure Bleue - Guerlain (1912)
• Le Parfum Ideal - Houbigant (1900)
• L'Origan - Coty (1905)
• Magie  - Lancome (1949)
• Midnight -Tussy (1949)
• Midnight Mist - Tussy (1956)
• Miracle - Lentheric (1925)
• My Sin - Lanvin (1925)
• Narcisse Noir - Caron (1911)
• No. 3 - Park & Tilford (1931)
• Nuit de Noel - Caron (1922)
• Orchidee Bleue - Parfums Corday (1925)
• Orchis de Nuit - Garlands (1959)
• Palomar - Lanier (1954)
• Paris - Coty (1921)
• Private Affair - Lenel (1953)
• Quelques Fleurs - Houbigant (1912)
• Regina Rose - Patricia Murphy (1957)
• Repartee - Lentheric (1950)
• Roman Holiday - Bourjois (1955)
• Secret of Suzanne - Suzanne (1924)
• Shalimar - Guerlain (1925)
• Shanghai - Lentheric (1936)
• Sharelle - House of Hampton (1961)
• Shining Hour - Jacqueline Cochran (1941)
• Shocking - Schiaparelli (1936)
• Silent Night - Countess Maritza (1947)
• Silhouette - Lanier (1955)
• Sonata - Countess Maritza (1953)
• Sortilege - Le Galion (1937)
• Strategy - Mary Chess (1942)
• Tapestry - Mary Chess (1934)
• Tweed - Lentheric (1933)
• Virtuoso - Lanier (1954)
• White Lilac - Mary Chess (1932)
• White Magnolia - Helena Rubinstein (1952)
• White Mist - Countess Maritza (1953)
• White Shoulders - Evyan (1943)
• Yram - Mary Chess (1934)