1940s Interiors

A photo survey

There are so many wonderful image collections out there, on flickr, pintrest and the like, but it is surprisingly difficult to come across images of interiors from the 1940s.

My interest in 1940s interiors is a personal one, that is, I'm looking for inspiration for our home, so I have put together a short(ish) collection of scanned images from some of our books and magazines, which I think is worth sharing here.  This selection follows on from an earlier post on 1940s fabrics.

The images are mostly of fairly modest homes, a reasonable starting point since we're not likely to be in a position to furnish our home with Andre Arbus anytime soon (which reminds me, I need to speak to those lotto people about this on-going issue...) and I have selected them because each one has a particular feature or finish that interests me.

And why the 1940s?  Well, it's hard to pinpoint, but I'm very fond of art deco, streamline moderne and post-war modernism and the 1940s is the in-between point of these styles.  It's a place where there is a way to blend the otherwise very distinctive and opposing styles spanning either side of the second world war, and that's great for me and my partner and our eclectic tastes.  So, here we are:

1. Textiles: Stroheim & Romann. Ceramics: Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Co. Ltd.  From 'Furnishing the Small Home' - Margaret Merivale (1945).
2. Fireplace treatment. Designer: W. Curtis Green R.A. ibid
3. Room detail. Joseph Aronson. ibid.
4. Studio room by Helen Park. ibid.
5. Room detail.  Oliver Hill. ibid.
6. Dining room, Bowman's Ltd, London.  From 'Design in Every Day Things' - Australian Broadcasting Commission (1941).
7. Hand woven woollen materials by Catherine Hardess of Melbourne. ibid. 
8. Living room of Miss Patricia Detring, Bel Air. Designer: Paul T. Frankl Associates.  From 'The Studio Year Book.  Decorative Art 1943-1948' - ed. Rathbone Holme & Kathleen M. Frost.
9. Scale model of living room.  Designer: Edward D. Stone. ibid. 
10. Japanese pavilion, World's Fair, Paris 1937.  Designer: Junzo Sakakura.  From 'Furniture & Interiors of the 1940s' - Anne Bony (2002).
11. Shangri-La Hotel 1939-1940.  Photographer: Julius Schulman. ibid.

Experimentation

Velvet Cream - a new soap

I haven't made a new variety of soap for a while.   I've been busy just restocking some 'old' favourites after the Christmas rush.   So, yesterday, I whipped up a log of Velvet Cream.   This soap is made up of the usual olive oil and olive pomace - a great base for soap because it is super mild and gentle.   Added to this is a generous amount of cocoa butter and mango butter.   This will give the soap its creamy, luxurious feel.   Finally, I added a dash of castor oil.  I find that this gives the soap a silky feel on the skin.

For scent, I used vanillin and tolu balsam.  I don't know how this will take in the soap - this is the experimentation part.  I haven't used either before.  The vanillin tends to crystallize, which might be annoying, but has a delicious vanilla scent.   The tolu balsam is soft and mellow and has a rich vanilla/resin scent.   Overall, I think the scent is delicious, so I'm hoping it holds in the soap for the duration!   

Here it is then, in its mould.   I'll have more pics after 4 weeks when it is ready to use.

1960s Toy Stencils

Colour Inspiration

Some time ago, I came across a bunch of old toys and stuff from my childhood including these wonderfully coloured plastic stencils.  I love that translucent soft plastic and the 1960s Eurasian designs.   I think my favourite was the seal, though the lion and squirrel come pretty close.

Available Stock

A guide to some mighty fine soap!

After the Christmas rush, I have sold out of a number of varieties, which I am currently busy replenishing.  However, there is still soap left in the store and below, you will find some of my favourites:

Top row:
Evening Star - Gentle and indulgent, Evening Star soap has a rich and creamy lather, brimming with luscious oils including macadamia nut oil and pine nut oil. The scent of basil and star anise is fresh and seductive, just what you need after your day out on safari. A Pernod martini is recommended after use.
Sunday Spice -  A gourmand's delight, Sunday Spice is a creamy, rich soap packed with luxurious oils for your skin like cocoa butter, shea oil and avocado oil. With the mouth-watering scent of carrot seed and ginger, you'll think you're on the bank of a river, sitting on a gingham picnic rug with a slice of home made carrot cake in your lap! A super luxurious and delicious soap.
South Pacific -  We all have our own Bali Hai and in this soap you will be wafted there on a dream of exotic lemon and tropical flower scents. Enriched with coconut oil, cocoa butter and apricot kernel oil, your skin will think it's on holiday too! A great conditioning soap.

Middle row:
The Emperor's Chai -  With delicious and spicy cardamon through a creamy blend of cocoa butter, macadamia oil and pine nut oil, you will have your very own dream cup of chai in a bar of soap! All that, and beautifully served up packaged in its own box.
St Clement's -  Wonderfully scented with mouth-watering sweet orange and may chang essential oils, this beautiful soap will have you dreaming of summer escapades through the citrus groves of southern France. Blended with oils including olive oil, olive pomace, macadamia nut oil, vitamin E-rich rice bran oil and jojoba, St Clement's is well suited to condition and gently sooth sun-kissed skin.
Madame X... -  With the seductive scent of ylang ylang, rose geranium and black pepper, this spicy floral will bring out your adventurous side. Lavished with super rich oils including olive oil, olive pomace, cocoa butter, apricot kernel oil and exotic musk melon oil, your skin will feel sensuously smooth and silky, ready to start your day of mystery and intrigue! Packaged in green - the colour of the unconventional! What a soap!

Bottom row:
Smokey Joe -  This soap is a sophisticate. A luxurious blend of oils including olive oil, avocado oil and vitamin E-rich rice bran oil make for a fine conditioning soap. The smokey, green and earthy scent of cade and vetiver takes this soap to another level. It is the lapsang souchong of soaps.
One Fine Summer -  Lying in the grass looking up at the blue sky, walking through the pines by the beach front or drinking your first Pimm's No.1 cup for the season, One Fine Summer will evoke your fondest summer memories. With a gorgeously breezy citrus-floral scent and lavishly blended with macadamia nut oil, shea oil, olive pomace and olive oil, One Fine Summer is a luxuriously creamy, all-natural and vegan soap. A superb skin-conditioner.
Spring Sherbert -  A sumptuous blend of oils including apricot kernel oil, cocoa butter, olive oil and vitamin E-rich rice bran oil give this soap its fine lather and conditioning properties. But for you romantics and dreamers, it will be the fizzing floral scent of lemongrass, lavender and lavendin that will fill you with the excitement of a new spring day.

Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez soaps are $7.50 and postage is $7.00 for up to 3 soaps, and $11.00 for 4 soaps or more.  Let me know if you have any queries or if you would like to reserve a favourite soap which is not currently available.

Enriched Bath Salts

New products for 2014!

I recently trialled a range of bath salts and I was very pleased with the results.  I sold them at That Dapper Market and people seemed to respond to them well. 

In making the salts, I considered what I wanted out of a bath product - something luxurious and indulgent - something which softens the water (sheesh, Adelaide water is hard!), leaves the skin gently moisturised and provides a wonderful scent (gentle and not over-powering).  

So, I used high quality, mineral-rich salts - Dead Sea mineral salt and pink Himalayan rock salt - mixed with skin-softening epsom salts and added a splash of shea oil.  I chose shea oil because it feels particularly nice on the skin.   The shea oil and the essential oils I added needed to be anchored (oil will eventually seep to the bottom so something needs to keep it suspended around the salt throughout the jar), so I used a blend of arrowroot and bicarbonate soda (again, great for softening water).

I made three, if I might say so myself - amazing - all-natural scents:

The Violet Hour - a complex yet sweet blend of violet leaf essential oil and vanillin;

West of the Moon - a super-rich floral blend of rose geranium and ylang ylang and;

Evening in Capri - a sophisticated dry citrus blend of kaffir lime and bergamot.

Each jar of bath salts is accompanied by a cute little wooden spoon (made from plantation wood) and is beautifully labelled ready for gifting or indulging!   The 200g jars of salt will be $16.00 and postage will be $7.00.   The salts will be ready in the Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez store about mid-January.

19th Century Papier Mache Mushrooms

The Museum of Economic Botany, Adelaide Botanic Gardens

I don't know why, but I often feel drawn to Victorian things in the days following Christmas.  I think it must be a desire to be grounded in that quiet, solid world of elaborate design, earnest pursuits and brown things after the brash, noisy rush of Christmas.

Boxing Day, I like to pore over (or is that paw over - I do both) my small collection of 19th century gardening books, read a little Tennyson and go through my collection of cabinet cards and cdv photographs. 

So, today, I was pleased to make a visit to town with my partner and we wandered through the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, including the wonderfully stern Museum of Economic Botany.

Within this small museum, there is housed an amazing collection of 19th century papier mache mushrooms, apples, pears and plums, made by Heinrich Arnoldi & Co, Gotha, Germany.   They live in lovely Victorian cabinetry with their original labels.  They were a joy to see!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Jelly!

Time to get nostalgic

We had a lovely time visiting my parents last night.  We brought food to share and exchanged cards and gifts and while it was a lot quieter than my childhood Christmases, it all felt festive and cheerful.  

While helping pack the special crockery and glasses away, I noticed in the corner of a lowly cupboard a couple of glass jelly moulds.  Glass jelly moulds are always beautiful of course; their weight and the glistening curves, but this pair brought back memories of my grandmother and her small flat filled with bits and pieces of her life in London that so fascinated me as a child.  

I commented on the glass jelly moulds and my mother reminded me that they were her mother's and she believed they came from her mother's mother.  She then gave them to me, a gift I happily accepted because the moulds are both beautiful and full of unseen memories for me.  I know I'm getting a bit of a reputation as a grifter, but I insist this is unfair!   (Only the night before I was at a party marveling at the bowl of pitted cherries, when the gracious host insisted I take her cherry pitter - which I did, it would have been churlish not to!).

Well, here are the jelly moulds in all their sparkling, chunky, Victorian, crystalline beauty!

 

 

Merry Christmas, all, and thank you for your interest in Shanghai Lil and The Scarlet Fez!!