Ivory Snow - Overposed.

It has become clear to me that general interest magazines of yesterpast are decent, but magazines that focus on men's or women's interests are brilliant. When advertisers try ever so hard to portray a fantasy of hairy machoness or, in this case, delirious femininity, you're in for a good time.

Ivory Snow soap, 1951. Whether she's doing laundry or just about to put on a string of pearls, the woman of 1951 likes to get spacey, dreaming about cleaning, being clean, cleaning again while dreaming about how great it was being clean the first time she cleaned a minute or two ago.

The only shot in this ad that seems even a little natural is the one with the baby in it. That's probably because babies are resistant to holding a balletic fairy-like pose for more than a second or two at a time. More on that picture later.

"I often like to sit at my hovering glass table, with pearls poised above my creamy white neck, staring off into the formless blue void. What? You've never been to blue? Oh, I positively adore living in the formless blue. My address is Pantone 534c, you know. Sometimes my darling husband and I talk of moving to another area of the void, but after so many years at 534c, I couldn't imagine living in any other color. Excuse me, I need to resume staring off with poised pearls, all the while daydreaming of mountains of snowy white soap flakes. Bye now!"

"Oh! There you are again! Hello again! You caught me doing my other favorite thing: pausing endlessly while apparently hanging laundry for my loving family, while staring off into the formless blue void You know, it may seem strange to have the washing machine in the back yard, but that's one of the great joys of life in the formless blue void. One place is much like the next, even to the extent that the word "place" ceases to have any meaning. That, and indescribably wonderful Ivory Snow! Must run now! Lots of creepy staring to do. Do drop by again!"

Here's a P.A.G. first. Goofy Photoshopping for no good reason. The baby picture was begging to be messed with. Fire would have been a little predictable. X rays seem funnier today.