You may wonder why a glass bottle has claimed a page in a metal detecting journal, but this little treasure earned its place through a stubborn, metallic song. I found it in that strange “no-man\u2019s-land” between an old farmhouse and the public footpath\u2014a place of random discards and forgotten journeys.<\/p>\r\n The signal was deceptive: a strong core wrapped in scratchy, restless undertones. It was the kind of ragged response I might usually dismiss as a fragment of crushed foil or a rusted tin, but something convinced to me to dig.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n When the soil finally parted, it didn’t reveal the dull orange of rust, or bright aluminium gleam, but a sudden, vivid pulse of glint of colour. I found myself staring at a small, fluted jar of emerald green glass\u2014an Icilma Vanishing Cream<\/strong> pot, miraculously untouched by the decades. I can only offer a grateful nod to the detecting gods for guiding my shovel a fraction to the side, sparing the fragile glass from a final, shattering blow.<\/p>\r\n “Natural Water from the Algerian Springs”<\/strong> That signature green glass was designed to catch the light on a lady’s dressing table, a small monument to luxury in a changing world. To find it here, tossed aside in the grey shadows between the village centre and the farmhouse beyond feels like catching a glimpse of a ghost\u2019s morning routine. Whether it was lost on a walk or discarded once the magic ran dry, my random wanderings have brought its emerald beauty back to the sun.<\/p>\r\n There is a poetic symmetry in this find. Much like the 16th-century jettons mass-produced in Nuremberg and scattered across the globe, this jar marks the dawn of a new empire: the global beauty industry. By the early 1920s, Icilma had been swept up into the growing Lever Brothers<\/strong> dynasty. The fluted, iconic glass was crafted to be recognizable by touch alone, even after the paper labels had disappeared into the Wiltshire loam. It is a mass-produced relic of vanity, holding its color long after the faces it graced faded into history.<\/p>\r\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Object: Icilma Vanishing Cream JarDate: c. 1921\u20131953 You may wonder why a glass bottle has claimed a page in a metal detecting journal, but this little treasure earned its place through a stubborn, metallic song. I found it in that strange “no-man\u2019s-land” between an old farmhouse and the public footpath\u2014a place of random discards and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11513,11488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-everyfind","category-metal-detecting","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pDxlf-3GO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/greenfacecream.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14186"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14269,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14186\/revisions\/14269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/vrharbor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/greenfacecream-850x478.jpg\")
<\/span>Object: Icilma Vanishing Cream Jar<\/strong>
Date: c. 1921\u20131953<\/strong><\/p>\r\n
Icilma was a titan of early 20th-century artifice. They enchanted the public with tales of “natural oxygenated water” drawn from a singular spring in the Algerian desert. This “Vanishing Cream” was their flagship\u2014a non-greasy alchemy designed to disappear into the skin, leaving only a perfect base for powder.<\/p>\r\n