Dralle

Dralle was an international perfume, soap and cosmetics company based in Hamburg, Germany, which is probably best remembered by older generations for "Dr. Dralle's Birch Hair Water", later known as "Birkin".

The initially small factory was founded in 1852 by Georg Justus Dralle as "Georg Dralle Parfüm- und Feinseifenwerke" near Hamburg's Zollenbrücke. Born in Beverungen in 1817, Georg Justus Dralle was an employee in a chemical factory in Minden and moved to Hamburg, where he was granted citizenship in 1852 and began his career as a manufacturer. "Lilionese" is the first known perfume created in the year the company was founded.

In 1854, the Hamburg newcomer opened a store for his perfumes and cosmetics on Steindamm. A first branch was opened in Altona in 1876. In the course of the company's history, the majority of his children from his marriage to Elisabeth Dorothea Richter as well as his children's children were involved in the Dralle company, which was expanded, relocated and changed its legal form several times.

Expansion abroad with branches, subsidiaries and production facilities, for example in Austria-Hungary, Sweden, Basel, Warsaw, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Merano, Tønder, Java, Zagreb, Gdansk, Oslo, Tokyo and Osaka, began at the turn of the 20th century and testify to the company's success in the field of perfumes, hair tonics, skin-, mouth- and dental-care, hair dyes, soaps, powders, lotions and pomades. In 1962, 26 factories and bottling plants in Europe and overseas were manufacturing Dralle products.

Dralle's famous Birch Hair Tonic, a hair tonic containing birch sap based on ethyl alcohol and water, was launched in 1889 and was initially mixed in a bathtub. From 1895, the year of the founder's death, the birch water required for the hair tonic was harvested in a small birch forest in the Pinneberg district and from 1950 to 1975 in the Winzeldorf forest.

In the field of perfume products, the "Illusion" fragrances created from 1908 onwards are among the innovations of the traditional family business. The Illusion perfumes appeared as concentrated floral fragrances in various floral variations. They were heavily advertised as "floral drops without alcohol - one atom is enough!", promised "maximum intensity" and "enchanting fidelity to nature" and, according to the manufacturer, were the "original and model for all perfumes without alcohol". The metal lighthouse-shaped bottle cases with a blue or red glass stone as a "beacon" and the wooden or silver-plated versions are attractive collector's items today.

In 1991, the French company L'Oréal acquired the company and ended almost 140 years of company history with the closure of the Hamburg factory.

[The text has been machine translated. Suggestions for corrections are welcome.]