Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Wishing you “the luck of the Irish.”
This wee silver perfume bottle (just over an inch high!) was probably made to be worn on a woman’s chatelaine.
In the 1700s and 1800s, the “lady of the house” would wear a chatelaine as a convenient way of keeping small household items handy. It was a decorative clasp fixed to the waistline of her gown, with several small chains dangling from it, and important little tools and devices attached to the ends of the chains. Those items could include a pencil, a thimble, tiny scissors, a coin purse—and, in some cases, scent bottles. This example, embossed with a shamrock, seems perfect for today’s date.
Image via Ruby Lane.
PERFUME PROFESSOR ( 
Lovely bottle, but it’s actually not a shamrock but a four-leaf clover. The Irish shamrock has traditonally three leaves, since St Patrick explained the Holy Trinity with a three-leaf shamrock to the Irish.
The four-leaf clover however is according to old traditions the “lucky” clover because it’s quite rare to find, but has on the other hand nothing to do with “the luck of the Irish” which originates in the US not in Ireland.
Sorry for nitpicking, but here in Ireland we are sometimes a bit exasperated about all the clichés and historical mistakes about the Irish. We keep on rectifying… 😉
On a brighter note: I love your perfume articles on Now Smell This and I certainly will read your new blog.
All the best!
And no, we don’t say “top o’ the morning” either :-)))
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