2nd July 2017 / 1 Comment
Woman's Realm /
15 July 1961
These appear to be ‘Pull-up’ pants for teenage girls, so I’m not all that surprised that they didn’t become popular. I suspect part of the failure might be the ‘fleecenap’ that’s meant to absorb menses, although I can’t say for sure how it measured up against other sanitary alternatives of the time. Another attempt was made a few years later in the shape of Nikini, but the failure of this product suggests that, amazingly, not all women are made to the same shape and size, and so they’re better off deciding for themselves exactly where their sanitary protection should sit. A secondary reason why this kind of product isn’t likely to be making a comeback is the loss of social stigma around tampons, and even the reputation of menstrual cups is changing from being too ‘hippy’, due to some canny advertising praising their ecologically-friendly credentials.
Tags: blatant sexism, health, periods, social history, Tampax, teenagers
24th May 2012 / 3 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
14th May 1965
I’ve written about Phensic before, but I find their code for period pain quite fascinating. No wonder so many people were confused about sex and periods, if the only references made were as heavily veiled as this.
Tags: blatant sexism, health, periods
9th December 2011 / 1 Comment
Woman's Weekly /
26th March 1965
See? Only BABIES use sanitary pads! Anyone else feel like they’re being talked to like a toddler?
Tags: periods, Tampax, teenagers
15th June 2011 / 8 Comments
Woman's Realm /
31st March 1967
Judging from this ad, contemporary Tampax must have formed channels that menses could leak out of. If anyone can confirm, I’d be grateful! Lil-Lets still talk about width-ways expansion, and they’ve been a lot more explicit about comparing the Lil-Let to Tampax products for, ooh, at least the last 25 years, as I remember this ‘dip test’ from my adolesence. I could go on, but I’m aware that some of my audience are already feeling a bit queasy. Incidentally, boys, menses is NOT blue.
Tags: periods, retail, Tampax
20th February 2011 / 10 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
23rd May 1969
Come on! Live a little! Stick some cotton up your vag! Not the most positive of messages, is it?
Tags: health, periods, retail, Tampax, teenagers
7th April 2010 / 14 Comments
Woman's Own /
14th July 1967
Ooh, this is an interesting one. I’m not quite sure why Nikini sanitary pads need their own pair of tiny pants, but it does sound uncomfortably like the pad’s only held in place by forcing the wearer’s crotch to stay still. No wonder ringed pads were so popular for quite a few years afterwards, as it was some years before British women got a pad which was thin enough to not make the wearer feel self-conscious, and which actually worked!
Tags: periods, retail
20th September 2009 / 8 Comments
Woman's Own /
20th June 1969
Well, I had to do the tampon ads, didn’t I? All discussions of sanitary products reminds me of my mother, who would have started mensurating in the mid-1950s, telling me that she used rags for the first few years, because her family could afford nothing else, and her joy at finally being able to afford a sanitary belt, a contraption that looked horrifying to my teenage self in the early 1990s. I never got on well with sanitary towels, so when the Tampax woman visited our school to explain the use of the product, I embraced them with open arms. Both my mother and my friend’s mother remained suspicious of tampons until their menopause, so it’s probable that these ads were fairly ground-breaking back in 1969.
Tags: blatant sexism, periods, retail, social history, Tampax