You may have seen what is called a Tear Catcher Bottle before. 

I know I’ve seen them every now and then, and always assumed they were little decorative bottles for oils or perfumes. We even have a couple on display at the store. 

Later in life, when helping to organize some family items, we found a small package with a few Tear Catcher Bottles, and a card explaining that they were literally used to catch tears.

I thought that was weird, but moved on with my life. I figured it was a part of ancient history, when people thought omnipotent beings ruled the world and did things like catch their tears in decorative vials.

Thinking back on that, I decided I wanted to know more. Are these decorative perfume holders, or literal tear catchers? Turns out, it’s a slightly controversial topic.

There are a few romanticized explanations for the Tear Catcher Bottle.

One is that there is a tradition that goes back to ancient times where, when a loved one died, you caught your tears in one of these bottles. As a symbol of love and respect, the bottles were placed in the tomb or burial site of said loved one, so they would have that honor and devotion with them in the afterlife. 

Apparently, this tradition was revived during the Victorian era of the 19th century, and then again during the Civil War. It had the same concept of catching your tears when a loved one died, but during this time you would keep the bottle out, and a special stopper allowed the tears to evaporate. Once all the tears were gone, your period of mourning was over. 

It was thought that the more tears collected indicated how important the deceased person was. 

It has come out that over recent decades, there is no evidence that any of this is true. 

Especially in Victorian times, this practice did not align with the common practices for death and mourning. And they were doing some crazy stuff, like keeping their dead loved ones above ground so they could take pictures with the corpse(s).

In Victorian times, it is most likely that these Tear Catcher Bottles were actually perfume bottles. The ornate, oftentimes tear shaped bottles, held perfumes that were meant to be displayed, and the vials that look like small beakers were simply vessels to take home fragrance refills or samples.

In ancient times, they were likely also vessels that held fragrances, oils, or unguents(ointments), which goes along with the idea that the ancients filled their tombs with items they wanted to have with them in the afterlife.

For the ancients, the most common theory is that these small, decorative bottles were Rosewater Sprinklers, a decorative vessel used to dispense Rosewater during ceremonies and social occasions. A common, modern day comparison would be a priest sprinkling holy water out of an aspergillum.

This idea that people in the Victorian era were catching their tears as part of the mourning process is thought to have possibly been romanticized by writers and poets writing about a way of measuring immeasurable loss. 

The bottles found in tombs were called Lachrymatory Vessels, or Tear Catchers, by 18th and 19th century archaeologists, as the first bottles found were tear shaped. Like a game of Telephone, the meaning was misconstrued to mean a literal tear catcher. Or so historians seem to think. 

Whichever you choose to believe, both are interesting concepts to think about.