original and intact single c. 1850's antique ceramic shaving cream jar or "pot lid" manufactured for x. bazin of "roussel's" pefumery in philadelphia, pa. the white ceramic features an allover printed design and text in red ink, with an ornate floral pattern forming a circular border. the lid reads "roussel's / unrivalled / premium / shaving cream" and below this, "gold & silver medals awarded by the institutes of new york philadelphia & boston". emboldened beneath this is "x. bazin" and the very bottom bears the early address "114 chestnut st / philadelphia". during the 1800s, philadelphia served as a hub for perfume, soap and pomade manufacturers. many of those factories were located on chestnut street. edwin t. feedley wrote in "philadelphia and its manufacturers" that the city’s perfumers were “unrivalled” and the “largest in the world.” eugene roussel was an important manufacturer of perfumes and later soda water. xavier bazin initially served as the lab director for roussel from 1840 to 1849, when he assumed proprietorship of the business. eugene roussel came to philadelphia in 1838. he immediately set up a perfumery where he made fancy soaps and toiletries, and additionally had a mineral water fountain. bazin bought the perfumery business from roussel when roussel wanted to focus on his mineral water venture. bazin continued to use roussel’s name until 1853. the bazin family owned the business until 1884. by 1857, bazin had moved to a new address at 17 s. 5th street. there he continued to very successful with his perfumeries, especially his shaving creams. these bazin products were put up in ornately decorated pots, the lids of which are very valuable to collectors now. this particular type of jar was used between 1840-1920 to market various products which came in a paste form. after ww1 they became obsolete as more modern and economical forms of packaging replaced them. after roussel sold bazin his business, he went on to become an important figure in the bottling industry. between 1840-1844 there was an explosion of bottlers, caused largely by the craze for eugene roussel’s bottled soda and mineral waters; in 1838 or 1839 roussel bottled the first syruped soda water, a lemon flavor. he innovated in the taste and quality of bottled waters using his training in a parisian perfumery and lab to invent recipes that were more palatable, with none of the medicinal or bland qualities soda water of the time commonly had. the craze he created was so great that public demand for bottles triggered the reopening of the closed dyottville factories in 1842. roussel is credited as being the first to flavor his waters with fruit juices, or the first to bottle flavored soda water; neither is technically correct, though he is the first to have made a success of it and thus garners credit as the “father of the american bottled soda water industry.”