This is a clear cut glass toilet water bottle with blue decoration and gold gilding. Toilet water bottles like this are generally larger than ordinary perfume bottles and were kept on the dressing table. Toilet water bottles use a dilute scent based alcohol that is cheaper to buy and lasted longer as it rarely turned rancid. It became very popular during the Victorian period because the more subtle fragrances were seen as more suitable for a lady to wear, rather than heavy perfumes. The most famous toilet water was known as cologne, which emerged at the end of the seventeenth century. In the nineteenth century lavender water became a hugely popular toilet water and is still seen as quintessentially English today.