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Vintage Vanity Perfume Bottles
“Visiting my grandmother’s house was always an adventure, a place of discovery. Some of my favorite
archeological studies were conducted on the top of her dresser. It was packed with old glass bottles and exotic
boxes chock-full of all kinds of jewelry,” explained Lisa Berczel. In this isomalt project she seeks to capture the
rich sparkle of vintage glass she found there, incorporating traditional glass molding and no-mold lampwork
techniques that have been adapted to sugar.
Editor’s Note: The tutorials for the necklace and the lacquered jewelry box were featured in the May/June 2012 ssue of American Cake
Decorating magazine.
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COMPONENTS:
CakePlay isomalt: 7 oz clear; 3 1/2 oz blue; 1/2 oz white,
pearl or gold, your choice; and 1/2 oz green
Confectioners glaze food lacquer in a concentrated
form and undiluted
Gold paint (gold luster dust mixed with vodka)
FOR DESIGN & ASSEMBLY:
Silcone molds: 1” round, 2” round, and the Heirloom Scalloped
Garland by Chef Rubber, Homemade two-part 3” oval
Alcohol spirit lamp and fuel or kitchen torch
Silicone mat work surface
Microwave
Toaster oven or oven with pilot light
Pyrex oven-safe cup
Silicone hot mitt and hot pad
Cookie cooling rack
Teflon® griddle
Chef Rubber Magic Freeze Spray,
(optional, but highly recommended)
Food dehydrator or oven with pilot light
Script liner paintbrush
Disposable gloves
Airtight container with desiccant sachets
2. Use a microwave to melt
the clear isomalt in an ovensafe cup, it will boil and bubble when completely melted.
If a casting is made immediately, these bubbles will be
trapped. Instead, allow the
hot isomalt to rest in a toaster
oven set to 250ºF. After about
20-30 minutes the bubbles will
disappear. Once the isomalt is
clear, casting can begin.
Lisa notes: Safety first. Isomalt can cause severe burns if not handled properly. Use hot pads and oven mitts when grabbing Pyrex
handle out of the oven. Wear disposable gloves that can be ripped
off and submerge hand in a ready-bowl of room temperature water.
3. The perfume bottles will be hollow. Set the oven-rested isomalt
on a hot pad and allow to cool till it is the thickness of honey. This
is around 175ºF degrees, but I find it is easier to work by observing
the isomalt’s thickness than trying to get an accurate temperature
reading. Fill the mold about half way. Carefully pick up the mold
and rotate so isomalt evenly coats the inside and neck. Keep rotating until the isomalt begins to cool and slow down. Be careful as
some isomalt will invariably drip out of the neck.
1. You can create a variety of bottle styles by rearranging different
shaped molds. I used the 1” circles for stoppers and 2” circles for
small round bottles and jars. The larger bottles were used a twopart silicone mold made with a 3” oval plastic Christmas ornament.
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4. Place the mold upside
down on a cookie sheet
and allow about half the
isomalt in the mold to
drain out. After a couple of
minutes, pick up the mold
and place base-down
to allow the remaining
isomalt to flow back down
to the bottle of the mold.
After a couple more minutes, turn the mold to rest
upside down once again.
After the isomalt stops
flowing, carefully pick
up the mold and use old
kitchen scissors cut off any extra. Isomalt will still be quite warm and can
be pushed back against the mold with the back of a spoon if it is pulled
away from the mold wall.
Lisa notes: Each mold is different. It will take some experimenting
to get to know how much isomalt it needs and how many minutes
and turns it takes on a side while cooling on the cookie rack.
The goal is for an even wall a little less than 1/8" thick. Thinner and the
cast it is too fragile. Thicker and the bottle won’t be as delicate looking as
the real thing. Let the isomalt cool completely before trying to open and
remove it.
5. Clear bottles are best done with the first pour from a new batch
of isomalt. Reheating with the excess that has been collected from
a casting can be done, but it won’t be as clear and will have more
bubbles. This is
a good time to
experiment with
colors and marbling. Reheat, and
rest as before. But
this time, tint the
isomalt with a few
peppercorn-sized
crushed pieces of
colored isomalt.
Fill the mold about
1/3, drop in a few
more pieces of
different colored
isomalt. As the mold is rotated, the colors will melt, blend and swirl
in a completely random way.
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6. Bases can be made
by pouring a small
puddle of isomalt on the
silicone mat, then carefully warm the bottom of
the bottle over an alcohol
flame or with the kitchen
torch. Quickly set the
bottle into the puddle
and hold vertical and
centered as the isomalt
cools. A blast of Freeze
Spray can help set the
base but be careful to not
hit the bottle—too fast a
temperature change will
result in thermal shock
that will crack the bottle.
Lisa notes: Experiment with mixing and matching bottles, stoppers and bases. Play with shapes and color. Several of the bottles
created didn’t make it into the final project because they weren’t
a good aesthetic fit. But, they’re stored away for another day.
The green glass bottle was still too warm when I unmolded it and
one side slumped in. So, I pushed in the other side to match and
voila…a potion bottle!
7. For the stoppers, slightly overfill the 1" circle mold. Once the
isomalt is cool enough to handle, pinch up the extra into a cone
to become the stopper. Again, a quick blast of Freeze Spray will
speed up the cooling.
8. Unmolded isomalt will often have a layer of fine bubbles on the
surface. There are several causes for this: The hotter the isomalt
pour, the more bubbles or dirt in the mold also causes bubble.
The shinier or smoother the mold surface, the smoother the casting will be.To minimize or eliminate these bubbles, very carefully
heat the surface over a flame and even out the surface. This is
easier to do with the solid stoppers, but very time-consuming and
difficult with the thin-walled bottles.
This is the one time that humidity can be a friend instead of foe.
Humidity will slowly “attack”, soften and even out the surface. The
trick is to stop this slow-motion destruction before real damage is
done or hazing begins. Place the bottle in a dehydrator (or oven)
to quickly dry the surface. Temperature should be around 95ºF and
the bottle placed inside on its base (not on its side). Any hotter and
the isomalt will become soft and distort. Once the bottle is dry and
not sticky to the touch, seal it with a layer of undiluted food lacquer.
Lisa notes: I’ve even gone so far as to brush warm water onto the
isomalt to smooth out the surface.
9. Even out the rough
neck of a bottle by
melting it against a hot
griddle. Several passes
on the hot surface are
better than one long swirl
or you risk cracking the
isomalt from thermal
shock.
Lisa Berczel of Battledress Paint-n-Body
specializes in placing art
onto any surface, from
cars to the human body,
musical instruments to
fabulous foods. If it stays
still long enough, Lisa can
turn it into a work of art.
One of her specialties is
airbrushing and she has
a master class on The
Art of Airbrushing on Craftsy (see link below for 25% off). However,
she works with almost any medium and her work has been used on
runways, book illustrations, on stage, for advertising and much more.
Weblink:
Battledress.biz
Facebook.com/lisa.berczel
Craftsy.com/airbrushing25
10. For further embellishment, stands and caps can be made from
shaping lace molds. Cast the mold and remove when cool enough
to handle, but warm enough to shape. Use a flame or torch to spotheat any stubborn areas that need additional shaping.
11. Create
designs and accent embellishments on the
perfume bottles
with gold luster
dust mixed with
alcohol. ACD
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