Tag: advert

No More Drunkenness, 1909

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 23, 2016

This is a kind of anti-Rohypnol advert from 1909. It’s a product that you surreptitiously slip into the unaware’s drink in order to sober them up.

“No More Drunkenness” is promised with “the Great Coza Powder”, which has “the marvellous effect of producing a repugnance to alcohol in any shape or form.”

The USP for this product is that the user isn’t aware that they’ve taken it. It’s for other concerned members of the drunkard’s family for administer in “coffee, tea, milk, beer, water, liqueurs or solid food, without the partaker’s knowledge”.

The troublesome imbiber suddenly doesn’t fancy a drink anymore as the powder “does its work so silently and surely that wife, sister, or daughter can administer it to the intemperate without his knowledge and without his learning what has effected his reformation.”

I’m not sure exactly how it works – you can get a free sample sent out to you, so it’s obviously not a one shot deal. Maybe you have to take it every day.

Annoying as the drunkard is, I suppose it’s not technically moral behaviour to secretly slip them some Coza Powder. Or it wouldn’t be if this remedy wasn’t pure quackery, and easily made in your kitchen right now. One of my favourite publications, The British Medical Journal’s “The Composition of Certain Secret Remedies” of 1909, the very same year as this advert, was a take down of the old Victorian and Edwardian pharmaceutical industry with analyses of all those “never fail” medications. It dismisses Coza by its findings that all it consists of is ordinary bicarbonate of soda, cumin and cinnamon.

Tags 1909, advert, alcohol, Coza powder, Food and drink, pharmaceuticals

1900-1949 Adverts Pharmaceuticals

Stale Foot Acid, 1939

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 11, 2016

It feels like there’s always something new to be body-conscious about. A new zone that hair should be entirely removed from or else some hidden part of the body that now, apparently, should be bleached. Of course, there’s always the accompanying new products marketed to solve our problems before we even knew they were problems.

Well, it was always this way. Just like Skin Constipation tried to become a “thing” in 1937, “Stale Foot Acid” was the new thing to worry about in 1939. It was basically the same thing – clogged pores which could be cured by, well, having a good wash.

Here’s the (not-so) science bit – the sweat from your feet, left to become “stale”, turns to acid, blocks up all the pores in your feet and then starts piling up in the muscles, resulting in corns, callouses, stabbing pains, burning and tingling.

“You’ve got to shift that acid or go on suffering!”

So, what can be done to alleviate this dreadful condition? The “modern treatment” is to bathe your foot daily in water with Radox bath salts added. Radox is the best bath salt to use because it “liberates about five times as much oxygen as other bath salts.” Somehow, this “supercharges” the bath water and lets the acid escape through the now unblocked pores. Hooray!

And as a bonus, you now also don’t have people fainting at the vinegary stench when you take your shoes off.

Tags 1939, advert, pharmaceuticals

1900-1949 Food & Drink

The Ovaltine Egg Farm, 1930

Post author By Estelle
Post date December 7, 2015

Until I saw this advert, I didn’t realise that eggs used to be a vital component of Ovaltine. They even had their own egg farm next to their original factory in the UK, based in Kings Langley, and which they used in the advertisements. “Malt, milk and eggs, flavoured with cocoa,” was how they described it. Today Ovaltine is owned by Twinings and has ditched the egg, apart from the “may contain traces of egg” disclaimer. As all food adverts were apparently compelled to do from around 1850-1950, the claimed nutritional value was paramount.

Eggs, and the associated implication of nutritional value, were indicated in its original name of Ovomaltine which references “ovo” for egg, and malt. It was invented in Switzerland in 1904 and is still called that there – amusingly, the reason for its name change to Ovaltine in the UK in 1909 was apparently because of a spelling mistake on the trademark application.

It was a household name of a brand thanks especially to the “The Ovaltineys” radio programme. It ran from 1935 until 1952 on Radio Luxembourg, with a break while the station closed for the duration of the Second World War. It might have ended over 20 years before I was born, but even I know the “Ovaltineys” jingle as sung by The Beverley Sisters.

In 1953, the brand got more positive publicity for its nutritional value when Sir Edmund Hilary took Ovaltine with him on his expedition to climb Mount Everest. Now, I associate it more with a soothing, warm-milk-to-help-you-sleep, kind of effect, rather than climbing mountains.

I’m always a fan of Art Deco buildings, and the Kings Langley factory is a beautiful example. It closed in 2002, and now it’s been converted into flats, but with the same listed façade. And where the The Ovaltine Egg Farm was based is now the site of Renewable Energy Systems Ltd.

The company doesn’t make it very clear where it’s manufactured for the UK now. But it does have some more vintage Ovaltine ads available on their website, which are worth a look.

Tags 1930, advert, Food and drink, Ovaltine

1900-1949 Adverts Women

Advice to Husbands – (Dont’) Kill Your Wife, 1932

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 28, 2015

Here’s a 1930s example of what became known as “shockvertising“. It still works as an attention-grabbing technique – it made me gasp when I found it.

It’s a rather strong method of advertising from Brown of Myreslawgreen, an economical clothes shop. You need to read the small print to see what it’s really saying, and I expect everyone did read it – I can’t imagine many people blithely turning the page without investigating further.

“Every husband worthy of the name likes to see his wife and children well-dressed. It is a difficult problem these hard times, and our advice is – don’t KILL YOUR WIFE with worry trying to make ends meet….”

Tags 1932, advert, advice for husbands and wives, advice for wives, Marriage advice

1900-1949 Adverts Women

Women’s Facial Hair Removal, 1914

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 24, 2015

A lovely little advert from 1914 for women’s facial hair removal. The “Ejecthair” system makes big promises – “It not only causes the hairs to instantly vanish, but without pain or harm kills the roots absolutely and forever.”

Ideal for women with the unusual “Laughing Cavalier” facial hair pattern.

Tags 1914, advert, ejecthair, hair removal, women