I am hitting the vintage magazines again, leaving the 1940’s movie magazines aside for awhile and I am back to the most fabulous decade of them all the seventies. The seventies were fabulous for two things and just two things only- one ME and two ME, I mean Star Wars. I am just kidding- the seventies was a great decade for lots of reasons, but still even I shudder to look at the fashions of 1970s and with good reason.
So instead of scaring you with advertisements of scary hippie reject clothing, let’s light some candles, dispense with the clothes and look at some ads about bathing.
First up for the children- we have this advertisement from 1971 for Avon. It reads This Christmas give lots of good clean fun from Avon. I love this advertisement from Avon, because it brings back so many good memories of my Aunt Loretta who sold Avon in the seventies. I used to love opening packages from her filled with fun Avon jewelry and perfumes. Although she sent me lots of Avon goodies, I missed out on this gem though. Check out Barney Beaver in the top right corner. He keeps your soap dry and comes with a nail brush tug boat. So cute- but what’s even cooler is the soap is already a deep dirty brown color, so Mom can’t tell whether you have soaped up or not.
“Of course I washed up Mom- look how brown the soap is!”
Next we have this two page advertisement from Helene Curtis for their product Tender Touch Bath Oil and Bath Oil Beads. It reads;
The children called her everything but “Mother.”
To them she was “The woman Father married”… or “Dear Elenora” or “Yes, M’am.” For Stephen’s sake, she was determined that the children would accept her. Would even come to love her. In these moments of quiet desperation, she gave herself to a Tender Touch bath. The quiet place. With twenty-one exotic oils, one rich conditioner, and one subtle fragrance. And later, soft and supple in lemon chiffon, she’ll be ready for dinner. Ready to face them again. And this time, she will conquer.
Take a Tender Touch bath and start all over again.
Okay so this advertisement is so wrong on so many points and it’s just plain dirty. Playing with yourself in the tub never made anyone a nicer person or has it… we won’t go there. Here’s the picture of Dear Elenora and she needs more help then a tender touch bath would do. Why does she look like a young pregnant Cruella Deville? Is she bald headed- did those dang stepchildren make that poor woman bald headed? Oh well moving on.
Moving on from that unpleasantness, we have what bathing is all about Naked Joy! It is not about brown soap or about conquering your stepchildren in lemon chiffon.
Bathing is all about Naked Joy… figure it out, comment please but keep it clean.
Well …. all I have to say is that I need a bath.
Say, do you have any of those boat bath brushes for sale??? They would be great for my beard … and stuff.
I don’t read any innuendos at all in the Tender Touch ad. It seems to me to be just talking about a relaxing bath by herself. Tender Touch was the first popularly price bath oil, introduced in 1961 according to Helene Curtis company history.
So far as 70s fashions, I still pretty much wear the same fashions I did then – blue jeans and tee
shitsshirtscorrected* Mike says he wears Tee shirts
Please correct that last item to read shirts instead of… (blushing beet red)
Eric – why do you need a bath is your soap brown?
Mike- I am laughing so hard I can hardly type. I don’t let my husband wear those anymore. He tried to wear one of those to church one day but I said don’t you know, you shouldn’t wear a tee sh*t in church.
I don’t really read too many innuendo’s in it either but it reads like a soap opera and those are all dirty dirty dirty shows. I have never watched one, but I tried a couple of times to humor my friends in school and I just remember they were boring and dirty.
You sure there’s no innuendo in the line “in a moment of quiet desperation she gave herself to a tender touch bath.” See that just sounds wrong.
Once is a quiet moment of desperation I gave myself over to a triple whopper with cheese and it was good but it hurt me. It hurt me bad.
It makes me laugh how obvious the language in older advertisements is. Now if we wrote a persuasive caption like that, it would be rejected for being too on-the-nose, not subtle enough. It’s like advertising has had to get cleverer to work its evil magic on us: we are not willing to be conned by just anything now: it has to be clever, subversive, ironic.
The seventies was the decade that gave us avocado green! Woohoo!!! The house my parents built had avocado green appliances, and when we moved years and years later, we moved into a house… with avocado green appliances! Yay for avocado green! The old house had an avocado green bathtub too, but the new one had white. But maybe that was because the old house had a green bathroom and the new (used, actually) house had a yellow bathroom.
Jenny- I don’t necessarily agree with you- there are a lot of commercials lately that aren’t subtle at all. Take the Super Bowl ads (most parents cringe to let their younger children watch them) and then there was the ads from that Burger company that implied Angus burgers were from cows… well remove “g” from what I wrote. Then there where those 7 UP yours commercials… I actually think we have gotten stupid and more crass in advertising. Thankfully I don’t watch television- I watch all my nonsense on the internet or I get it form old magazines.
Dan- can I place my order for an avocado and bacon cheeseburger with you today? I’ll pick it up at your blog later… don’t skimp on the avocado or bacon.
Hmm . . . I only take showers as they are proven to get you 90% cleaner than a bath. I guess Tender Touch is trying to appeal to daddy’s new woman–the one the kids don’t like hahaha. Excuse me while I go bathe in exotic oils and dream about pregnant women;)
LOL – I think my cousin had that Charlie Brown brush and comb set. Too funny. I don’t remember the other stuff but I was still kind of young then. I don’t remember anyone having naked joy either. I hated baths when I was a kid. Who wanted to stop playing long enough to have to go sit in a tub for what seemed like forever. Maybe they should have given us kids some of that naked joy or tender touch. Heck. We would have taken Mr. Bubbles even!
Bobby- My Mom and Dad always took baths and I think they are disgusting. It’s like stewing in ones own dirty juices.
Teeni- I remember the big bottles of Mr. Bubbles… I don’t remember bathing much- I seem to think bathing was not that important in the seventies. I think for the most part people were dirty and hairy in the 60’s and the 70’s!
Oh, OK… maybe not then!
I don’t watch TV either so I don’t actually see that many adverts. I do surveys from time to time though, which often require me to watch a car advert or a drinks advert, and they have all seemed very subtle (sometimes to the point of being baffling). I haven’t seen any of the adverts you mentioned though, so some of it may be a cultural thing. I do think there’s definitely something characteristically dated about the phrasing in that Naked Joy advert though, even if I haven’t quite put my finger on what.
I know what you mean by very subtle to the point of baffling… that seems like the other extreme lately. Commercials and advertisements where one can’t even figure out what the product is…
I see a lot of billboards that are great mysteries to me and I have to think- why are they paying for marketing if no one can tell what they are supposed to buy???
I love all things 1970’s style!
Please consider this as your engraved invitation to the awards ceremony at my site.
Still waiting for my order ….. cob webs are hangin`
How could Speedy miss Barney Beaver? The guy is crazy for beavers!