Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)
Feb. 9th/81
Dear Sir
Will you be so good as to send me a bottle of Vaseline of white colour if you have any.—1 Also I want a pot or bottle of soft Bears-grease or Pomatum (whichever you think best) to put on my beard, which in dry weather feels uncomfortably harsh.—2
Vaseline was the trade name used by Robert Augustus Chesebrough when he began promoting soft purified petroleum jelly for medicinal purposes in 1872. In 1858, he had observed that the black petroleum that built up as a waxy residue on the oil rigs in Pennsylvania was used by oil miners to heal cuts and burns. The white petroleum jelly he patented as Vaseline underwent three purification processes. (‘Vaseline’, http://www.vaseline.co.uk/article/vaselinestory.html (accessed 20 August 2019).)
Perfumed bear’s grease was used to promote hair growth and to soften beards. The grease from Russian bears was considered the best, but from the mid nineteenth century the demand was so great that other animal fats were often passed off as bear’s grease. Vegetable oils, especially macassar oil, began to supersede bear’s grease by the 1870s. These greasy products for hair were known as pomatums or pomades. (Marsh 2009, p. 30.)