Cuba Material collection · Colección Cuba Material
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Nail-polish bottle cap with integral applicator brush (esmalte de uñas)
Object/Artifact
Screw cap from a nail-polish (nail-varnish) bottle, comprising a molded white plastic cap/handle of distinctive flared, fluted "double-trumpet"/hourglass form (longitudinal ribs, wide flared ends, narrow waist), continuing into a clear plastic stem that carries the lacquer applicator — a tapered tuft of natural (brown) bristle. The bristles are splayed and stiffened. No bottle is present, and no brand, maker, or country marking is visible on the cap.
2025.1.370
Kept by Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez, possibly to repurpose.
The cap-and-brush unit is the closure of a nail-polish bottle: the fluted portion is gripped and unscrewed, the stem descends into the lacquer, and the brush applies it. Cuba's state cosmetics industry produced nail polish Fantasía (top coat, base, and 10 colors) and quitaesmaltes Prisma.
The Cabrera Arús family collection
2025.1
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
Date: undetermined; the molded-plastic cap is broadly mid-to-late 20th-century and consistent with the collection period, but cannot be fixed without marks or the bottle/label.
9 cm
2 cm
Cap/handle (white fluted plastic) with brush stem (clear plastic) and natural-bristle applicator.
Plastic
Molded plastic (white cap; clear stem); plastic bristle
Poor
Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez
owner
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
use