See Lil-lets tampons and instructions from South
Africa (1978)
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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Lil-lets advertisement, "How to make
a packet of tampons disappear" (in a magazine from the United Kingdom,
October 1988)
Although Lil-lets is a popular tampon outside the United States, this
ad shows the same concerns American women have had since, well, since the
country was founded, probably.
The Johnson & Johnson company, which made Modess pads, commissioned
a study (presented in 1927) from Dr. Lillian
Gilbreth, the famous efficiency expert, to find out what women wanted in
pads. One of the things Dr. Gilbreth discovered applies to both pads and
tampons today and shouts in this advertisement: American women wanted the
product and the box to be inconspicuous.
Commercial tampons had not appeared when the Gilbreth
report appeared (women could probably buy the first
ones in America in the early 1930s), but they
incorporated this quality in a way a pad never could because they disappeared
inside the body. By the way, like the first commercial tampons, Lil-lets
has no insertion device. Tampax, in 1936, introduced this stroke of genius.
(An Australian doctor introduced the applicator menstrual
cup in the 1980s, but the product failed, although
I've heard that it may not be dead. Some day I'll put what I know about
this on the site.)
Now to get rid of the box! Lil-lets also follows
Dr. Gilbreth's advice: reduce or take off the writing!
Folks who object that menstrual products companies
should make people more tolerant of things menstrual rather than exploit
their fears ignore the task of the businesses: to make money. The famous
ad man David Ogilvy said that advertising aims not to change society but
to discover what people believe and exploit that to sell products. It's
something I halfway accept while regretting it.
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The ad covers two facing pages in the magazine.
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Below: the six sections, enlarged.
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