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MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH
Tampex menstrual tampons, no applicator, Turkey? date?
Box
I think this tampon, like the Turkish imitation TamPak,
is also Turkish. I believe Turkey is the most Western of the Muslim nations
and possibly sold tampons before the others. And it looks as if a company
made a look-a-like Tampax, this time closely imitating the name, replacing
the A with an E.
The imitation continues with the color, although it's greener. (Compare
with a Tampax box from 1970, below.)
Apparently someone from Tampax, the offended company, wrote a memo about
this imitator (see the white label, below). The
typeface is very close to the Tampax original except for the T. Much of
the text on the box - strangely, in English although the instructions are
Turkish! - is from a Tampax box. My theory is that women who had been used
to seeing or hearing about Tampax - the real one - would buy this box, but
maybe couldn't read the English instructions. People will say, "Get
me a box of Tampax," meaning tampons, and the person will grab this
one.
But, as with the small TamPak, the big difference is what's inside:
tampons with no applicators! Tampax famously made the first tampon with
an applicator (see the patent and early history
plus a very early Tampax). The super-size TamPak
does have an applicator, here.
Nowhere do you find patent information - if there is a patent.
The box measures 4.625" x 2" x 0.625" (11 x 5.2 x 1.6
cm), the same as the small TamPak.
Tambrands kindly donated the box as part of a large
gift from its archives.
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Circle: For a larger size the big-hearted company recommends the company
it's copying! Someone at Tampax Inc. wrote the label.
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Other side of the box. Compare the text with Tampax box, below.
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Tampax box that Tambrands dated Nov. 17, 1970
(gift from Tambrands). Note the almost identical typefaces for the brand
names.
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The famous "NO BELT[S], NO PINS, NO PADS" on both, although
other American tampons also used the phrase or variants.
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Oops! "Sure" instead of "Safe,"
which they got right on the second picture from the top.
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The ends. Inside the oval, lower left on the left-hand box, is the word
"Türkma[n?]. On the same box, lower right, stands perhaps the
price.
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© 2006 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
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