How to sell Kotex, a
page for trade publications, probably early 1920s, U.S.A., and "Your Image is Your Fortune!,"
Modess sales-hints booklet for stores, 1967 (U.S.A.).
Announcement to retailers of the menstrual tampon
"Playtex Plus" pages 1 (cover)
- 2 - 3 - 4
(back cover)
See a prototype of the first Kotex ad.
See more Kotex items: Ad 1928 (Sears
and Roebuck catalog) - Marjorie May's Twelfth
Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many
links here to Kotex items) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing disposal
method - box from about 1969 - Preparing
for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls) - "Are you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See
more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page
 
|
 
THE MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH
Announcement to retailers of the menstrual tampon
"Playtex Economy Pak" (1975, U.S.A.)
Playtex did several things first in the world of tampons - see below
- including two that got people screaming: plastic
applicators and deodorant. But Playtex
appeared before other tampons on television,
which might have led to a more open discussion of menstruation besides distressing
the male audience, a good thing. Males need to get
used to talking about it. That's part of the problem. (But Kotex
had been on boxcars - yes! - in the 1920s,
a menstrual cup decorated Times Square in 1961,
Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby promoted Stafree pads
on the radio in 1982, the same place Procter & Gamble gave the good and bad news about Rely tampons in 1979 and 1980.)
It also colored at least part of its boxes in red,
I think also an advance. Menstrual products companies almost always avoided
that color (see an early exception that proves the
rule as well as here); Heavens, you couldn't
remind women of blood! But how 'bout brown and yellow on toilet paper wrappers?
Oops, sorry, I mean bathroom tissue, in America anyway. You know, that soft
paper you dry yourself with after taking a bath? Well, at least I do.
See also How to
sell Kotex, a page for trade publications, probably
early 1920s, U.S.A., and "Your Image is
Your Fortune!," Modess sales-hints booklet
for stores similar to the one below, 1967 (U.S.A.).
I thank Tambrands, the former maker of Tampax, for donating this
brochure to the museum.
|
Below: The cover (page 1) of the 4-page
brochure. It measures 8.5 x 11" (21.5 x 27.8 cm) and is medium-weight
coated (glossy) paper. Somebody at Tambrands probably kept it in a 3-ring
binder, accounting for the holes at the left side.
|
 |
Copyright Harry Finley 2007
|
|
|