See early tampoms Dale, Wix
and B-ettes and a bunch
of other earlier ones.
See San-Nap-Pak sanitary napkin ads from 1932
and 1945 and Ads for teenagers.
See the roughly contemporary Cashay tampon,
box, instructions. (Procter & Gamble donation, 2001), and
Dale (U.S.A., 1930s?-1940s?) Tampons, box, instructions.
(Procter & Gamble donation, 2001)
And, of course, the first Tampax AND - special
for you! - the American fax tampon,
from the early 1930s, which also came in bags.
See a Modess True or False? ad in The American
Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley
in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
 
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Cashay tampons (1930s-1940s?, U.S.A.)
Instructions
Procter & Gamble kindly donated the box and contents as part
of a gift of scores of menstrual products.
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Companies continually examine competitors' products, or should,
and a vigilant eye at Tampax spotted something worthy of passing on. See
the last item, below, for the find, a clue I think to this product's failure.
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Note the word "bandages," an old term (in the singular)
for menstrual pad. Menstrual products used to sit in the same section of
the American patent office as bandages for wounds, which in a sense they
are. Kotex started life as a bandage in World
War I; Johnson & Johnson made bandages before it made pads and tampons.
Cellulose and cotton seem to be the main constituent of tampons since their
modern commercial beginnings. I pulled the tampon apart to show the interior,
here.
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The instructions mention only "bath-tub" by name
as the place for a woman to put her foot when inserting the tampon. If she
were at work a toilet would be much more likely. I wonder if this indicates
a prudish avoidance of the word "toilet" or a hint that the user
would most likely be at home - that is, not working.
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A Tampax hand - Procter & Gamble, which bought Tambrands,
the maker of Tampax, donated the box - probably drew the arrow, reacting
to the affront of having its own tampon possibly mentioned for not being
as effective as Cashay. I suspect women found Tampax easier to insert than
this brand because of its very hardness.
I believe women still prefer pads to tampons in America;
the optimistic statement that once having used Cashay you will never use
"outer pads" again is wrong (and the company no longer exists),
especially, I suspect, after having tried to get the darned thing into a
dry or mostly dry vagina and without some lubricant, which you left at home.
Other companies have lubricated their tampons, Pursettes,
for example.
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END See the box
and tampon.
See early tampoms Dale, Wix
and B-ettes and a bunch
of other earlier ones.
See San-Nap-Pak sanitary napkin ads from
1932 and 1945 and Ads for teenagers. See the roughly contemporary Dale tampon, and very early Tampax
and fax.
© 2001 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute work
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