Lysol douche ad, 1928

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

Lysol douche ad, 1928, U.S.A.

Lysol, which today scours toilets and bathroom floors, scoured vaginas (and helped kill sperm) in an earlier era, when, I guess, women were hardier. (Andrea Tone, in Devices & Desires [2001, Hill & Wang], reports on the vaginal scalding Lysol caused, and read a 1936 critique of Lysol and Zonite douching). Note the powerful, horrible word "disinfectant." This is a black-and-white ad from McCall's Magazine, July 1928, the same month that future Life magazine photographer Lee Miller unwittingly appeared in the first menstrual hygiene ad to feature a real person, a Kotex ad. She was just as surprised, and disappointed, as the rest of the country.

Comments

[moonjaguar.livejournal.com]

And this was back when Lysol contained carbolic acid!

[dvdsky81.livejournal.com]

Just hearing the words Lysol and Douche together in the same sentence causes immense pain. You would think that would buuurrrrrn like hell.
Maybe it's the use of the word "disenfectant" which makes me automatically think of really crazy perfumey, harsh smelling chemicals..Like doucheing with bleach. Good God Im scaring myself.

[dvdsky81.livejournal.com]

*disinfectant, not "disenfectant" The shuddering is knocking my fingers out of wack.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

Even more, I'm imagining the smell of bathrooms on the Long Island Railroad trains. Nauseatingly strong and sickly sweet—like embalming fluid.

[whoseline_wlsc]

Yeah that's what I thought. Sounds mighty uncomfortable.

[keristars.livejournal.com]

Oh, I want to see the Miller Kotex ad!

[misstia]

+1

[keristars.livejournal.com]

I found it! I'm going to make a new post with it :D

[moonjaguar.livejournal.com]

I wonder if any of the people in this photo (especially the man and the boy) had any fame for appearing in any kind of douche ad.