Toilet water

I admire Chinese characters that can make an ordinary thing poetic and picturesque, and toilet water is one of them.

I still think that the word "toilet water" sounds much more beautiful than "perfume". It reminds people of the ancient women who collected floral water to make makeup. Although, in modern people's vocabulary, "perfume" is the real high-end product, and the latter is just a "hygiene product" with a spice content of less than 3%.

When talking about toilet water, the word that inevitably comes to mind is "Old Shanghai", and this word "old" cannot be left out. Nouns such as Shuangmei brand toilet water and Laodao cigarettes, Rendan posters, beauty calendars, Yindanshilan cloth cheongsam, etc., will take me into China in the 1920s and 1930s. The most impressive thing on the bottle of the Shuangmei brand is the nostalgic poster, which was painted and designed by Guan Huinong, the great-grandson of the famous export painter Guan Zuolin. It shows two lively and cheerful women. , the scene of lounging in the garden dressed in classical clothes, that moment of leisure, gave me the illusion of going back in time seventy years.

In fact, toilet water did not originate in Shanghai. The first Chinese toilet water, "Shuangmei Brand", was produced by Kwong Sang Hong, which established a factory in Hong Kong, and began production in 1905.

After the introduction of perfume, I originally thought that toilet water would suddenly be eclipsed, like a country girl who dyed her lips with red paper and painted her fingers with impatiens, but shunned in front of the glamorous ladies in the show. Unexpectedly, in the 1960s, a storm swept the perfume back to the Pacific Ocean, and only toilet water survived, relying on the name of "hygiene products". Reading articles recalling those years, the fashionable women in the books, or the little girls rushing to meet their lovers, always sprinkled some toilet water, or held a handkerchief sprinkled with toilet water. Someone recalled: "In the era when there was no perfume, toilet water became a substitute for perfume. If a woman walked by you and left the scent of toilet water, she must be a Shanghai woman." Look, even in that era, Toilet water is still closely associated with Shanghai.

I have a special memory of toilet water. I studied in Jiangcheng, one of the "Three Great Furnaces". The dormitory looks simple, but it is not very ventilated inside. Every summer, there is no air conditioning, so the nights are long and you are sweating profusely. At this time, most of us would wipe the bamboo mat before falling asleep, and then go to the water room to take a cold bath. After bathing, before sweating, apply toilet water generously. Then put the fan on your feet, take advantage of the coolness at that moment, and fall asleep in the scent, and you will most likely succeed. But there are also people who apply too much and feel "fever" all over their body, making them miserable.

I have always believed that toilet water cannot be replaced. The best time is in summer, when the cool breeze gradually picks up after sunset and when you are bathing and changing clothes. Sprinkle a little toilet water at this moment, and the fragrance that accompanies the residual heat is a unique flavor of Chinese summer and an irreplaceable flavor of the season. /n57236c105.aspx

The history of toilet water?

Star toilet water, which originated in the 34th year of Guangxu’s reign in the Qing Dynasty, was first born in the charming Shili foreign market - Shanghai. Mr. Zhou Bangjun, the well-known chairman of Shanghai Zhongxi Pharmacy at that time, developed a toilet water in a green glass bottle. Since being a star is the bright dream of many girls, he named this bottle of transparent green perfume "Star Toilet Water" and designed the logo to look like a girl wearing a dance skirt and answering gifts, focusing on the female market. .

As a result, this bottle of toilet water filled with beautiful dreams and elegant fragrance swept Shanghai and became the most famous domestic perfume. The cosmetics department responsible for the production of star toilet water was therefore independent from Chinese and Western pharmacies and became Star Chemical Co., Ltd. Soon Zhou Bangjun handed over the management rights to his daughter Zhou Wenji, who was only 20 years old at the time, and it was listed on the stock market at the same time, becoming a hot spot in the Shanghai stock market at that time. The popular fried chicken.

Zhou Wenji is quite business-minded. Under her leadership, Mingxing Chemical has become an enterprise and launched soaps, powders, hair oils and other peripheral products.

In 1946, Star Chemical began to set up offices in Guangzhou and Taiwan, focusing on the fact that the southern region has a hot climate and is more receptive to toilet water with disinfecting functions. However, the war changed the current situation and wrote a new page in the history of toilet water. In 1950, all the property of the Zhou family was confiscated, and the trademark of Star Toilet Water was acquired by Shanghai Family Chemical. In the chaotic situation, Zhou Wenji hurriedly fled to Taiwan with several employees, and continued to write the unfinished story of Star Toilet Water in Shanghai.

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