Tokalon offers perfumes, lotions and creams - Sedalia Democrat

During the last decade of the 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century, the old-fashioned general store that sold almost anything a person in a rural area might need gave way to the new, upscale department store carrying products needed by the urban dweller. The one-story store grew up, literally, with Elisha Otis’ perfection of the elevator through the addition of a working braking mechanism. The elevator made multi-story stores practical and inviting to customers.

During that same time period, the economic cycle took an upswing from the depression of the early 1890s. According to historian Jan Whitaker, who has chronicled the growth of department stores, people had more money to spend on luxury items, and department stores catered to this new clientele by advertising the wonders of their goods in newspapers, magazines and radio announcements.

The goods advertised included variations on the useful items sold in the general stores. The department store could provide furniture, musical instruments, radios and Victrolas, as well as clothing, notions and jewelry. For example, a well-dressed man now needed, in addition to his regular office-wear, a variety of neckties, belts, socks and shoes suitable for his many activities.

A woman, according to the advertisements, now needed several handbags coordinated to her clothing, several pairs of shoes for different outfits and hats for a variety of occasions, as well as belts, scarves, gloves, jewelry and multiple handkerchiefs.

One of the most popular goods sold at department stores was perfume whose sales counters were usually front and center on the ground floor. As a luxury item, it was presented in attractive packaging and extensively advertised. The Tokalon company, under the management of former Pettis Countian E. Virgil Neal and his second wife Harriett, advertised the “Perfume Tokalon of Mystery and Charm” as a French product. While it was first presented in rather ordinary-cut glass bottles, in the 1920s, Neal contracted with the glass-making firms of Depinoix and Fils and LaLique to produce bottles for his perfume.

These bottles include ones with floral motifs, character images and other motifs. One bottle made by LaLique for Tokalon’s Petalion Perfume is flat circle with fluted border around a bas relief face. A bottle for Tokalon’s Buda Perfume is a short, wide bottle with flared sides covered with a copper bas relief showing Art Noveau nudes and a stopper topped with another Art Nouveau nude.

Still another bottle for Buda Perfume features a figurative clear glass pedestal dominated by a clear glass nude. The pedestal supports the perfume container, which is accented by applied black-and-white glass stripes.

In addition to enticing customers to purchase the perfume, the beautiful bottles enhanced a lady’s dressing table and impressed her friends with evidence of her taste and wealth. A certain degree of wealth was needed to purchase the perfumes in extravagant bottles. These perfumes were sold in upscale department stores such as Lord and Taylor, Stern Brothers, and Abraham and Strauss.

The advertising and availability of perfumes at department stores had a serious impact on sales. Between 1914 and 1918, according to Whitaker’s history of the department store, perfume sales in the United States quadrupled.

Perfume was not the only cosmetic Neal produced and sold. Next week’s column details his line of powders, lotions, wrinkle removing creams and cures for baldness.

— Rhonda Chalfant is the president of the Pettis County chapter of NAACP and the Pettis County Historical Society.

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