My Memories of Crabtree & Evelyn
Today, my eye fell upon a spray bottle of Crabtree & Evelyn Nantucket Briar Room Spray. I can’t believe I still own this, and that there’s still some left, probably about half of the bottle! I remember when I bought it, in my old neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York. I believe the store was on Broadway around W. 108 St, a small neighborhood store. The old Nantucket Briar Room Spray still smells lovely and lightly floral. Impact-Site-Verification: 449181254
In addition, every morning I have my coffee in one of the Crabtree & Evelyn Anniversary Mugs that came out every year after Thanksgiving. Also called The Annual Mugs, they were introduced in 1985, the year I bought one to give to my friend, Georgette, when she and her husband moved from New York to Long Island.
From 1986 on, I collected their annual mugs with a new transferware design every year till 2018 when they were discontinued. The mugs started out being manufactured by Mason’s, a fine quality stoneware manufacturer in the UK, for at least a decade,
but after Harvey sold ownership to the companies in Kuala Lumpur and then Hong Kong, the quality of the mugs declined precipitously when manufacturing was switched to China for several years. Toward the end of their lifetime, the manufacturing of the mugs was switched to Burleigh in the UK (which was an improvement). The designs of the Burleigh mugs mimicked the originals, though the ironstone was thinner than the first decade of mugs from Mason.
History of Crabtree & Evelyn
How sad that the products have all but disappeared, and the company currently has obscure ownership.
I was curious today, so I googled “Crabtree and Evelyn”. The company began its life in Cambridge MA as The Soap Box, started in 1955 by Cyrus Harvey Jr., an executive at Janus Films, the distributor of international movies, that started its life at the iconic Brattle Theater in Cambridge MA, a historic house where foreign movies also called “art house” movies were shown. When I was a college student visiting home or friends, we would sometimes go to see movies at the Brattle. How fun to discover that a man I was unaware of, Cyrus Harvey Jr. started two companies that were part of my life for years!
To be honest, I have no memory of The Soap Box in the late 1960s even though my mother would occasionally let me take the train into Boston and then the subway to Cambridge, e.g. Harvard Square, to walk around and go shopping either with friends or on my own.
In 1971, founder Cyrus Harvey teamed up with designer John Windett in London, but the little store in Cambridge, The Soap Box, was reborn under a new brand name, Crabtree and Evelyn, that both Harvey and Windett created. Harvey was responsible for coming up with the products, and Windett created the packaging. Crabtree and Evelyn expanded its stores throughout the U.S. Because the brand had an English look and air about it, American tourists in London would often go looking for Crabtree and Evelyn stores only to come up empty. So in 1980, the first Crabtree & Evelyn store open in Kensington Church Street in London. Stores then proliferated throughout the U.S., England as well as in Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.
In 1996, after 40 years of owning the company and directing the brand, Harvey sold Crabtree & Evelyn . To me, the sale of the company from the founder to a holding company, CE Holdings in Kuala Lumpur, was the beginning of the end. Nevertheless, the day-to-day operations, i.e. research and development, manufacturing, and design, continued to be based in Alpharetta, Georgia where they had been happening in the 1990s under Harvey.
From 1996 onward, the company and brand changed hands. In 2012, CE Holdings was sold to the Hong Kong–based investment-holding company, Khuan Choo International Limited, for US$155,000,000. In October 2016, the brand was acquired by Nan Hai Corporation of Hong Kong.
Crabtree & Evelyn stores in the UK started closing in the late 2010s, and by 2019, they were all shuttered except for a new concept store in Islington area of London. In the US, the closing of manufacturing operations then based in Woodstock CT took place in 2019. The Canadian stores filed for bankruptcy that year.
In July 2019, Crabtree & Evelyn was relaunched. Under its new tagline “Born Curious, Grown Wild” designed to appeal to Millennials and Gen Z’s interest in natural personal care products, they were available to purchase online only. However, I remember that there were Crabtree & Evelyn product sets for sale at Costco for a couple of years, especially around Christmas.
Then COVID-19 hit disrupting even well-established businesses. The US website stopped all sales in February 2022, and has remained dormant since with the website just sitting there unattended at crabtree-evelyn.com. It’s weird that the website with newish, less distinctive-looking packaging and some familiar product names still has a ghostly existence with all the products listed as “SOLD OUT”.
What’s Up With Products On The Web Now?
Nevertheless, you can find some Crabtree & Evelyn products for sale here and there online. Since the manufacturing operations closed in 2019, I assume that many of the products being sold online were manufactured prior to 2019. Or maybe they were briefly manufactured in China before production ended during COVID. Buyer beware.
I didn’t know the history of this company. I’ve always loved their products. Someone is definitely still manufacturing their products because they are regularly in TJ Maxx and Marshalls in abundance. Sometimes they’ll also be on their websites.I was so thrilled to be able to buy them, again! My favorites are Sweet Almond and English Rose.
No kidding, Diana?! I haven’t seen C&E at the TJ Maxx stores near me, but I will keep an eye out for them. Sweet Almond and English Rose were both divine, though the English Rose shower gel set that I bought at Costco a few years ago lacked the lovely rose scent that I thought I remembered…but maybe it is just nostalgia. I loved their Jojoba soap that was shaped like a scallop shell. Also, I think you are right that someone is making C&E branded products somewhere. They are for sale on Amazon and online at a retailer called Eisler’s Chemist that maybe an old school pharmacy shop that I remember on Lexington Ave in NYC.
It’s so sad when products and companies we love disappear. *sigh* I remember Stendhal Cosmetics ad Pavlova Cosmetics from waaaay back in my teen years. And the way Yardley’s Lavender USED to smell…
Yes, for sure. I am wracking my brain, but I am not sure whether I remember Stendhal Cosmetics or whether I am just thinking about Le Rouge et Le Noir (lol). However, ages and ages ago, I am pretty sure I used to have a perfume called Pavlova, I can even sort of recall aspects of the packaging. I wonder if that scent was from the Pavlova Cosmetics that you mention. Have you tried the Yardley’s Lavender Soap lately? I’m guessing that you found that it has changed including the lovely scent. 😥
Loved jojoba too, beautiful packaging. Loved their products over the decades and enjoyed the stores and outlets…sad to see what’s happened. But yes, I also see some of the products in Marshall’s.
I remember Stendahl!
Kim, I saw the large bar of C&E jojoba for sale on eBay, and the price was more than $60!!! I haven’t been shopping Marshalls/TJ Maxx in a while because I spend too much money there and I am trying to give things away! But I will go to PJs and look for C&E one of these days in the near future! What were some of the Stendhal products? I’m trying to jog my memory!!