Lightyears Collection
Devilbiss Type MBC
DeVilbiss
(19??)
DeVilbiss

Click on image to enlarge L'Or by Coty

It is said that when Cleopatra set out to meet the "enemy" in battle, she had the sails of her barge perfumed so that the scent would meet Marc Antony before she did and, hopefully, the angry Roman general would mellow toward her ... which, in fact, is exactly what happened and the rest is history and storybook romance.

How she managed to perfume the sails of her barge we do not know. But we do know that if she had been using the DeVilbiss Type-MBC, she could have done a faster job of it, applied her perfume more evenly, and sustained less wasted perfume.

Of course the DeVilbiss Type-MBC wasn't intended for perfuming. It is a paint gun and, over the years, has been enormously profitable for the heirs of Dr. Allan DeVilbiss. But the same DeVilbiss son (Thomas) who suggested that the company branch out from medical atomizers (see example) to perfume atomizers, which he called "perfumizers" (example 1 ... example 2), was responsible for also taking the company into paint guns ... an activity that has allowed it to continue in business today — as part of Illinois Tool Works, a major American manufacturing company.

The point is simply that DeVilbiss exploited its atomizer technology in a number of very profitable ways, only one of which was its famous and often strikingly beautiful "perfumizers".

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