Woman's Own / 29th September 1967
Ah, Guinness used to love making health claims for its product over here, but were stopped a few years ago. Odd how many ads in my magazine collection are for various ‘nerve’ tonics and other antidotes to ‘feeling down/overwhelmed’, etc. It certainly brings context to the Rolling Stones’ hit ‘Mother’s Little Helper‘. Lovely ad design, though!
Tags: dodgy advice, Guinness, health, retail
Woman's Weekly / 9th March 1957
Hm. I don’t have a problem with giving children something to ease symptoms of illness at all, but I don’t think this type of emotional blackmail is quite on, do you?
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, blatant sexism, dodgy advice, emotional blackmail, health, kids, motherhood, retail
Woman's Own / 16th August 1968
Goodness me. These kinds of products are still available, of course, but I’ve never seen them get full page spreads in magazines like this. Now, I’m not going to argue that menses is the most pleasant of substances, but I can honestly say that I’ve never been able to smell when another woman is on the blob. Basic personal hygiene can normally be relied upon to avoid becoming a public menace, because, although it’s unmistakable up close, the smell doesn’t usually wander out of the crotch area.
Also, these products aren’t only not needed, they’re not good for the vaginal area either. The vagina is a clever little thing, which cleans itself, and anything that upsets the chemical balance up there can cause more problems than it claims to solve, as this article will tell you. Still, it didn’t stop the ‘Ethical-product’ division of Alberto-Culver spending time and money saving women from their FILTHY natural functions. If you were feeling sure about yourself before you read this, you probably weren’t afterwards.
Anyway, I presume FDS stands for ‘Feminine Deodorant Spray’ from the scan, rather than my hilarious guess, but are there any other suggestions?
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, blatant sexism, dodgy advice, emotional blackmail, health, retail, social history
Woman's Own / 20th March 1970
Well, I hope the Vaseline stays in the cupboard, because I was taught on my First Aid course that, despite what was thought previously, any sort of grease on a burn is a bad idea, as it keeps in heat, making the burn worse, and isn’t sterile, so could be an infection risk. This Wikipedia article is a good summary of the number of uses Vaseline was thought to be suitable for, some of which have been debunked. Vaseline can, of course, be very useful: just not on burns!
Tags: dodgy advice, health, retail, Vaseline
Woman / 5th May 1967
They may have well just said: ‘Nyah nyah! Smelly!’. However, deodorant ads aren’t all that different nowadays, with this example proving the point, with the rather insidious phrase ‘Beauty is freedom’. Try telling that to political prisoners, you bunch of tits.
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, Amplex, blatant sexism, health, retail
Woman's Own / 20th March 1970
Sigh. An ad from a more innocent time, where the word ‘gang’ could be used without negative connotations, and plasters were sold in metal canisters. I wonder if selling metal canisters nowadays, to be refilled at a chemist, would be a good way to cope with the large amount of card waste that must occur from modern card boxes, although it’s possibly more trouble than it’s worth.
Anyway, the main reason I put this up was because the boys in the ad look rather sweet, and I was taken by the phonetic spelling of ‘thousands’. I’m sure kids used to look cuter in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Woman's Own / 20th June 1969
Milk is only really advertised at children nowadays, so it’s odd to think that women in 1969 needed the health benefits of milk explained to them. This ad appealed to me because of the a) the rather nice picture of a contemporary telephone exchange and b) the novel idea that a glass of milk and an apple makes an acceptable lunch. Not for me, it doesn’t…
Tags: blatant sexism, diets, dodgy advice, food, health, Milk Marketing Board, retail, social history
Woman's Own / 20th July 1969
Women are delicate little flowers, so thank goodness Phensic came along to help with ‘a woman’s headache’. This reminds me strongly of the headache advert scene set in Hell in the Young Ones‘ ‘Nasty’ episode: “She’s talking about periods.” The claims to soothe the nerves and to lift depression seems like a recipe for painkiller addition to me. Unsurprisingly, painkiller adverts don’t make such exaggerated claims any more!
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, blatant sexism, dodgy advice, health, retail, social history