History of Colgate’s Cashmere Bouquet

Editor’s Note from 2021: The most recent news is that the soap is no longer in production.

Specimen from the USPTO files of a 1980s style design for the soap.

NEW YORK – There is something great about a brand that has not only survived a long time, but is still owned by the original company. Such is the case with Cashmere Bouquet, a soap that dates to 1872, and for the whole time, has been made by another Uber-brand, Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL).

According to the website www.perfumeprojects.com, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Water was but one product in a long line of “Cashmere Bouquet” products sold in the late 19th century. Colgate was founded in 1806; Cashmere Bouquet was introduced six years after Colgate first introduced perfumed soap. The website points out that even then, Colgate was adept at brand extensions.

In fact, perhaps the Cashmere Bouquet brand, while dated, could be revived and re-extended rather like Keihl’s or Caswell-Massey?

The 1872 introduction of Cashmere Bouquet marked the first milled perfumed toilet soap, and that year it was registered as a Colgate trademark. Then, the product was seen more as a fashion and luxury item. Today, it is a hotel soap brand, as well as sold at discount closeout stores.

Buy a bar today, and you can still smell that familiar smell. The main ingredients for Cashmere Bouquet are pretty good by the way, including sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate, glycerin, fragrance and other materials. Cashmere Bouquet is a most wonderful museum piece; It’s nice to see something still made the old way, with animal fat and lye. And it is Made in U.S.A.

Today, Colgate still sells the product, along with other soaps that include Irish Spring and Palmolive. In the U.S., the bar soap brand of Palmolive is not emphasized, as the product as seen as a dish detergent. However, in Europe, the U.K., and Australia, Palmolive is seen as more of a special scented natural soap.

Apparently, Colgate actually made the soap until 2005, when a century old factory in Kansas City was closed down and the company turned manufacturing over to a third party.

Author

  • Garland Pollard

    J. Garland Pollard IV is editor/publisher of BrandlandUSA. Since 2006, the website BrandlandUSA.com has chronicled the history and business of America’s great brands.

58 Comments



  1. You can’t go home again. The world moves on.

  2. I remember this soap as well. I loved the fragrance! I found some Cashmere Bouquet bar soap online about 10 years ago, so I ordered it. When I got it I opened it right away, but was so disappointed!! It did not smell the same as the original scent. It was close, but different. I’m wondering if anyone has the original scented bar soaps, I would gladly order.

    1. there are a lot of original Cashmere Bouquet products available on EBay…most likely in Etsy, also. It’s the best memory smell!

  3. Am I the only person who had a severe allergic reaction to this soap? I took a shower with it back somewhere around 1982-83 and got large hives all over my body. It took days to get rid of them. Then, awhile after I got severe internal/external hives that lasted for 3 days going up and down by circulatory system from head to toe. I was miserable!!!. Later I found out I could have died from it. I know it was this soap because I tracked it down to a kid’s birthday party. The hostess admitted to washing her dishes in it and I drank several cups of coffee in a cup washed in it. I felt very bad having to ask her if she used it anywhere. I needed to know if it was hives from the same or different. I have avoided anything that looks like it since, but don’t know the ingredient or ingredients that caused this severe reaction.

  4. I’m 73 and worked at the Original Bradford Soap Works in West Warwick, Rhode Island in the early 1960’s. I’m almost 100% sure we made Cashmere Bouquet Soap at that time. You could smell the fragrance over town when we were producing certain soaps

  5. I am 59 and in Australia. I too remember the old Casmere Bouquet dosps and powders. Now we can only buy a changed Lavender soap. Its not the same. I particularly used to love the smell of the pink soap and talc powder. Can I buy it overseas at all! That is how much I loved this old product. I want it back too. Are the manufacturers listening to all of us. This a demand for the supply of an old loved product. It has to smell and feel the same too.

  6. bring back the original Cashmere Bouquet. It’s the only soap that I used for many years. Nothing compares to it. Why did they discontinue it when so many people used it?

  7. I am obsessed with the original scent of the Cashmere Bouquet soap. It is no longer half as good as it once was. If it were brought back I’d buy all I could find. Why is it that everything has to be updated? If it’s not broken don’t fix it.

  8. Wow ! I am glad I am not the only one. I thought my obsession with this soap would pass after finding another like it but I still haven’t. I had found it years ago at a woolworth’s here in Canada,and used it for years,till they stopped selling it one day. I have searched high and low every store with no success. My mother makes soap with tallow and lye but its still not the same, not in feel or smell. The original formula was a true blend of greatness ,and after finding and ready all your comments, I don’t have hopes of ever finding it again. I am deeply saddened.


  9. I remember the original scent of Cashmere Bouquet. Sometimes I smell it when I am mowing the lawn. What flower is the perfume based on? I think it grows in my lawn.

  10. A point of interest with Cashmere Bouquet Bath Bar Soap. I along with others used it alone to clean high tolerance metal weight pistons because it unlike other soaps didn’t leave a soap film. Ie. it was a clean soap.

    1. Yes, we still do. Actually, it’s mentioned my name in the Ruska (now Fluke) manual for cleaning the piston.

  11. Magda- how much are you asking for the bottle of perfume if you still have it. I love that scent!!!

  12. I have a bottle of cashmere bouquet perfum made in “70/80.
    Im looking for someone who wants buy it. Its an original bottle and its full.
    you are complaining that the fragrance has been changed. The fragrance of my perfume is original. It may be that the company itself wants to buy because it has lost the original formula.

  13. another vote for bringing back cashmere bouquet!

  14. So want this bar soap
    Where can I purchase other than ebay

  15. If it ever does come back, and in it’s original incantation, I will have to try it. My best friend and her husband used it forever. And some here make it sound as if they’ve boycotted soap since it’s been off the shelves. Personally it’s Dove, the original Aveenobar, or a glycerin soap if it has to be in bar form. I went to soap from a bottle decades ago.

  16. Gratifying to find so many people loving the old Cashmere Bouquet like me, and being so incredibly disapointed when they changed the scent. My mother bought only Dial growing up and I hated the stuff with its ugly yellow color and terrible scent. Cashmere Bouquet smelled like heaven. It washed away your sins it was that submime. I remember it being far less expensive than other brands too. I have a case of hotel size bars with the original scent I bought on Ebay. Ahh, it smells like the innocent, classy 1950’s. Oh how I wish they would bring it back.

  17. I live in New Jersey, I have been buying this soap for years. It was always available at the discount stores here in NJ or NY. The beginning of June I went to the store to purchase in NJ, no one had the soap I was told they stop making it.

  18. I live in Los Angeles CA.is there any market or Pharmacy where I can buy the cashmere boquet bar soap thanks

  19. Yes, I found an old bar of Cashmere Bouquet at my Grandmothers estate. Most definitely it is the best soap Ive ever laid hands on. At 25 years of age and exploring whats suits me hygienicly, using these over perfumed soaps, such as Ambi, Dial, and or Dove. These brands have not satisfied my skin the way Cashmere Bouquet has done. “IT’S THE BEST SOAP EVER. PLEASE PUT THE ORIGINAL SOAP SENT BACK ON THE MARKEY”. Who the fuck are you guys to change it more “modern” anyway? Bring it back! I need it.

  20. What ever happen to roman meal bread?
    It was pretty popular back in the days.

  21. My grandmother used the cashmere bouquet soap and talc as long as I can remember..We are from Delaware and she lives in North Carolina we spent summers with her. I associate the scent with her to this day! She used to sprinkle it in the bed before we got in after our baths and at a healthy 89 years young still uses them! I know some have gotten cancer from the use of Cashmere talc and I’m sorry for that, but from what I’ve read its from the talc mined from its conception until 1960 or so. The later versions weren’t used from the same mines?? Correct me if someone has other informaton. I truly hope the later versions are safe.

  22. I hope anyone still selling this product has checked on recent lawsuit details. Our family used this talc daily. It is really too bad there wasn’t an investigative piece done earlier, as many lives may have been saved.

  23. I seel Cashmere Boutique Soap on EBAY! check out my EBAY Store MulberryAndPrince. Just do a seller search for MulberryAndPrince. I will gladly ship to anywhere in the USA and also internationally. Please do check it out.

  24. Just received Cashmere Bouquet soap as a present because I kept mentioning how I could not find it.
    My husband and I used this until we could not find it in the stores. It was bought May 2015 and it is NOT the same scent. It is almost too strong and
    not what it used to be. They must think it is new and improved. Some things should be left alone!!

  25. I share everything that has been said about this amazing soap. I found Cashmere Boutique soap in a little store sort of a woolworth in Lachine Quebec in the late 70’s early 80’s. I use to buy it in bulk afraid I would run out. Well I did and the store closed many decades ago. I have been searching and searching and my biggest fear is when I found it, it would not smell the same. I understand that Wahlgreens was selling the product at one time but its sad after reading the comments that the smell is different. I am really disappointed cause that is how I describe the soap, its amazing scent. I too also wish colgate would bring it back with its original smell. It made me feel like a million bucks everyday!! I hope we continue this chain reaction and petition to have our soap return to the shelves!Please consider introducing this fabulous soap to our new generation and bring back memories to your old and loyal customers.

  26. I love this soap. My husband uses it daily also. We also put a bar under the bottom sheet in our bed. It keeps my husbands legs from cramping. I know this sounds crazy but it works. I used to buy it at Drug Warehouse but Walgreens bought them all and I can no longer find it. Don’t want a new scent unless I have to take it. Tulsa, Ok

  27. I buy this product from a catalog…the Vermont Country Store. 6 bars for around $10. Also, haven’t checked yet but heard Walgreens sells it.

    Do not buy the Lifebuoy soap from Vermont…I sent that back…the scent is NOT like the old bar… Way too strong!

  28. I am 64 years old and I love Cashmere Bouquet. It is very difficult for me to find it. If discontinued, please reconsider. Thank you in advance.

  29. Have loved the smell of cashmere bouquet since I was 14 years old. Now I’m in my 50s. Having a hard time finding it in stores. Wish they would bring it back.

  30. One more thought, as a kid of 7 or 8, the soap did not smell good to young boys, we thought it stunk. But we did have fun selling it.

  31. In 1948 and 1949 at the YMCA in Norristown, Pennsylavania, we sold bars of soap to raise funds for Y programs. We received cases of unwrapped bars of soap along with plastic bags and we re-packaged into 6 bar and 12 bar bags and then went door-to-door. I do not remember how much we sold each bag for back then.

  32. I found several unopened bars of this in some stuff from my aunts estate – I had never heard of it before but the scent is amazing!

  33. I haven’t seen Cashmere Bouquet soap in any stores for many years and wondered what became of it, assuming they’d stopped making it. Last week, I did find one small (hotel-size) bar of this soap at an estate sale. When I picked it up I couldn’t detect any scent but assumed the scent would become apparent when used. No, I was wrong, it continued to be without scent! There was no way to tell how old this bar of soap was, but its total lack of scent made me wonder if this was due to its age or from the fact the company changed the scent as some are claiming. I’m 58 and I miss that wonderful scent from I remember from the 60s.

  34. Estuve por una tienda de antiguedades y vi el jabon en una caja toda vieja ya amarillenta lo compre baratisimo y me fascina, me volvi a comprar el otro que le quedaba ,me encanto su fragancia suave. Pero ahora no se donde encontrarlo en mi pais Rep Dom.

  35. I first used Cashmere Bouquet soap at my grandmother’s house in 1930. It went to war with me in 1942 when I was 17. I carried it all over Europe when I was International Dance Director for Arthur Murray. I still use it every night when I shower. The smell may be slightly different, but I only use Cashmere Bouquet. My wife loves it. The company needs to change their advertising tactics. Most body washes contain dangerous additives. Cashmere Bouquet should be promoted as a safe & ecologically friendly soap.

  36. This beautiful bar of soap has such sweet and wonderful memories going back to my grandmother; how I wish it was in my bathroom so my grandchildren will recall that aromatic scent as they start their mornings or ready for sleep at night! I’m trying to find/buy it or would it be easier to just buy the factory and make the original myself?

  37. yea, I agree. the scent did change a while back!!! I dont like the new scent. Ive been searching for it with the old scent, and have only come across it in small hotel bars. Why did they change it??????

  38. This bar soap is awesome great for sensitive skin it is very mild. I have been using this for a while and I love it, I have never been more satisfied with a bar of soap and I’ve used sooo many different soap, but when I found cashmere bouquet soap I was sold. For people debating on whether or not to try this soap,try it you won’t regret it.

  39. I echo the longing and praises for this lovely, simp[le soap of my childhood. I noticed that this conversation continues on though started 3 years back…I hope others will enjoy what I’ve written on my blog about Cashmere Bouquet. I’d love to hear your remembrances, too.

    1. Have been searching for Cahmere Bouquet. When I was little our family went to Corpus Christi Tx every summer. We stayed in the same little Hi Point Motel which was always sparkling clean. I eagerly rushed into that small cottage and was met by the wonderful hum of a small refrigerator and, you guessed it, the wonderful scent of Cashmere Bouquet!

  40. It certainly is not the same fragrance as it was. I used it for years and then lived out of the country until recently. I found it difficult to locate and then when I bought it I was disappointed. I still use it but with a LOT less enthusiasm. May I wish they’d bring back that original fragrance…

  41. I love this soap and haven’t been able to get it in any stores round me.I used to get it at Zellers a few years ago.It reminds me of my grandmother who has passed away,she used this soap for my baths.Very mild and what a beautiful smell !!!Hopefully some of the stores will get the message.

  42. I don’t know if cashmere bouquet soap still has that same scent from back in the day; but I really love this soap. It is one of those hard to find soap bars, but is worth the search. Lucky for me I am able to find it locally, So I use it everyday at least twice a day like my mother use to reach me. It smells really nice and it cleans really nicely. Iwill keep using this soap as long as it is bring made.

  43. The new Cashmere Bouquet is definitely NOT the same scent as the original at all.
    The only place to find it it on e-Bay! Too bad. I think the manufacturer acted too quickly to cancel making Cashmere Bouquet; then they brought it back with a
    more ‘modern’ fragrance (so they told me).
    I think they should reconsider. Maybe if enough of us fans of the original soap would write, we’d convince them!

  44. cashmere bouquet soap is my favorite soap now. My mom brong it home one night, and told me this was the soap that i ought to be using. I ignored her at first, but now it is the only soap that i use, and i love it. I love the scent, its one of my favorite things about this soap. I love the way it lathers up on my skin, its a great bar of soap.

  45. Did Haddon Sundblom creat ads for Cashmere Bouquet?

  46. The bar soap “Cashmere Bouquet” is NOT its original formulation. It has changed, is not the original perfume, and lathers differently than the original. I have used this product for 40 years and continue to do so, but it changed and is really a different soap now… I just can’t switch to anything else, since it doesn’t cause me to itch!

  47. Another longtime Colgate-Palmolive product that is still around but has become very obscure is their classic aerosol shave cream. Once as ubiquitous as Barbasol, it is found in only a few outlets these days. An excellent product with a great history at a fantastic value.

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