T. Mansfield's Capillaris

[robertk]

Bottle Vitals​

	Date	Color	Shape	Size (Height x Diameter)	Value*
T Mansfield's Capillaris	1880's	Clear	Round	3" x 2.25"	$10.00

Bottle Views (click to enlarge):

Front	Back	Side	Side	Bottom
T. Mansfield's Capillaris New York

T Hill Mansfield started marketing his hair and scalp tonic in 1882. It was manufactured in New York, then shipped and sold nationwide. It was marketed as a cure-all for dandruff, thinning hair, and other scalp conditions as well as for minor skin irritations. It was apparently made from a base of petroleum jelly (like vaseline), with other chemical ingredients. It was advertised as having neither plant nor animal ingredients. Here are some of the advertisements from the time period of this bottle. Click to enlarge.







And here is a trade card, front and back, from the period.



I wasn't able to find much information about the company, but the most recent advertisements I could find for it were from 1933, so the company may have ceased operation around that time.
I did find a colorful anecdote about Mr. Mansfield himself, though. Apparently he lived next door to the church that he attended, and on at least one occasion, threw a drunken party that aggravated the church officials. They called a meeting on whether to expel Mr Mansfield. He attended the meeting, offered no defense for his action, and when the officials asked attendees to raise their hand to vote for expulsion, Mr. Mansfield raised both hands. Here's the local newspaper's recounting of the incident (click to enlarge).



Perhaps he should have read the newspapers he advertised in, because there was a cure for his affliction advertised directly below his advertising in one of the newspapers. Click to enlarge.



Here's what the product would have looked like back in the day.



Cleaning this bottle was quite the challenge, and there's still some room for improvement. The problem was that there was still a fair amount of the original product in the bottle. As you can see from the photo above, it was a mustard-colored cream or paste. Since it is petroleum based, it does not dissolve in water. So my usual soap and water tricks were useless against it. To top that off, there were remnants of the lid that had been cemented to the rim by hardened product that had turned into a solid mass around the neck of the bottle. Given that the bottle was open, and presumably had been for a century in the ground, I did not attempt to save the contents. Here's the before and after. It required a few different scrapers, some brushes, and lots of paper towels. Click to enlarge.



*Value is based on sold eBay listings at the time of posting and varies considerably with condition.