Helpful Companies Want Their Helpful Products in Your Hoo-Ha

So these advertisments are certainly the spiritual ancestors of todays Norelco BodyGroom internet ads. Different look, but pretty much the same insecurities--this time for the ladies.


These come from 1948 courtesy of the Lysol Company. via http://www.neatorama.com/

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text: the locks are labeld "Doubt", "Inhibition" and "Ignorance"

“Often a wife fails to realize that doubts due to one intimate neglect shut her out from happy married love.”



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text: “Why Does She Spend The Evenings Alone? She neglects that one essential…personal feminine hygiene.”

“Wives often lose the precious air of romance, doctors say, for lack of the intimate daintiness dependent on effective douching. For this, look to reliable Lysol brand disinfectant.”

Doctors said this? Intimate Daintiness, is that some kind of advanced medical jargon?

Bear in mind, this is the same Lysol used today to clean your stove. So: ouch! The same product was also marketed as a mouthwash and as a birth-control method. In the old-timey advertisements they couldn't say use it for birth-control, say they danced around the issue refering to sperm as "germs" Apparently this was the most popular female contraceptive from 1930 until 1960. The prevention rate is something like 20%. So besides burning some very sensitive tissues and disrupting the natural chemistry down under -- it doesn't actually work very well as birth control. Be sure to ask Grandma about it some time.