Vaseline Hair Tonic - Dandruff shaming.

Hey, well-groomed citizens! If there's one thing worse for the consumer than waxy yellow buildup, it's a dry, flaky scalp! Do YOU know the state of YOUR scalp? Vaseline does, and the state of your scalp is not having enough Vaseilne gooped onto it! They don't even need to check.

This ad comes to us from the 1948 issue of the American Legion Magazine. Back then, advertisers weren't shy about scaring readers that they would lead a life of barren virginity unless they had a nice, shiny helmet of Devo hair that basically looked like a plastic hat. See for yourself!

Of course, Devo was using the plastic hair as a satire of 1950s conformity, brought to you by, among others, the good folks at Vaseline!

In all fairness, dandruff is still a turn off for anyone not living under a bridge. You know who I mean. That one guy who looks like Aqualung? What's his name? Chuck Bridge? I dunno. I know him when I see him. He always knocks over my trash cans, looking for nearly-empty bottles from Vaseline hair tonic. Beat it, Chuck! This is a Vitalis house, and don't you forget it! Scram!






Anyway, the guy in this ad is pretty boring, and not just because of the dandruff. The girl, however, could be used for a bunch of stuff. Let's have a bored intern pop her out of the background and drop her on a nice, transparent field of alpha channel. Randomly Chosen Intern, warm up your pen tool. You're going in! Readers, get your rude finger ready to right-click this lady onto your hard drive in three, two, one... Phil Are GO Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade, Deploy!!!!

Click it to big it, baby.

There she is. Lookin' good, toots. Tell you what, though. She'd also be useful with her thought balloon in place. Get on that shit, PAGGBPSB!

This thing ain't gonna click itself bigger, man.

Right on. Either version of her could be used to politely nag people about most anything, with some light Photoshopping, or just print her out and write her thoughts in with a pen. Here's a serving suggestion:

See? It's just that easy. You could have hours of fun nagging people with Vaseline Vicky... and possibly the prostate, if that's what you're into. If you are, I don't wanna hear about it.

You're welcome!

Kreml Hair Tonic - You will die of dandruff.

Wait. What? Dandruff causes baldness? This dandruff will be the death of us all!!! Thanks, Kreml! You got here just in time! And, do you have any tips to help prevent dandruff? What's that? Buy lots of Kreml! Thanks again! I love you, Kreml!

Dandruff causes baldness? Say what? If Willis had told me this, I would immediately demand "what he talkin' 'bout". But look at the ad. And yes, it is an ad, even though there's no product shot or logo to be seen anywhere. Very weird, but it's still an ad. So what gives? Well, if they omit any overt "addiness" from their ad, you may think it's an objective article. A very scummy thing to do, trying to trick people, but then that's advertising for you.

So what's with the science? This ad has lots of slides of really small things and mentions the names of sciency things like "bacilli", and "hair". So, it must be science, right? Let's check some science.

The Mayo Clinic is able to name some known causes of hair loss, such as heredity, hormonal changes, and - here's the really useful one - "medical conditions"! Thanks, The Mayo Clinic! You really burned the midnight oil to get to the bottom of that one! Bald guys, stop having medical conditions! Stop it, in the name of science!

However, having a laundry list of known causes is not the same as having a solution. Kreml would have us believe that if you see dandruff on your collar, you'll be bald soon. Nothing makes men's wallets fly open and spray money all over the place like conjuring the spectre of baldness and going "Woooooo! Baaaaaldneess!", while wiggling your fingers around in a creepy way. Cutting to the chase of the Kreml ad, it's all down to the villainous "bacilli". So what's "bacilli"? Well, it's a general term for any rod-shaped bacteria. That's not very specific, but it sounds more sciency if you say "bacilli" than "various bacteria". Thanks for the smoke screen, Kreml!

But that was 1953. Surely nobody's trying to make this argument here in The Future, are they? Let's ask Denorex, which I think wasthe name of the dragon in 1982's Dragonslayer...

While dandruff does not itself directly cause hair loss, the resultant irritation (itching, scratching, and rubbing) indirectly does exactly that.

Bullshit or science? Your haircut person will tell you that, when you're shampooing, work the lather up with the tips of your fingers, but not your fingernails. That's not proof, but it does make some kind of sense, unlike "lather, rinse, repeat", which is a shampoo directive designed to make you use up your shampoo twice as fast and nothing else. So, the mechanical agitation of scritching and scratching may make hairs fall out that were already preparing to jump ship... but dandruff is not known to cause baldness. A dry, itchy scalp will make you scratch your head, which will probably help any loose hairs fall out of your head. Dry skin is just one known cause of dandruff, and it will probably make you scratch your head. If you're going bald, dandruff won't make it happen faster. Those hairs would have fallen out in the shower anyway.

This is a very common logical fallacy: "correlation is not causation". To put it simply but more longfully, "things that happen at or near the same time do not necessarily cause each other" For example, "I observe  that men who are overweight like to wear Hawaiian shirts. Therefore, Hawaiian shirts cause obesity!" This is how superstitions get started.

Shockingly, Denorex, who stand to make money if you think dandruff causes baldness, would be very pleased if you associate dandruff with baldness. What about somebody with no horse in this race? WebMD doesn't get rich if you buy dandruff shampoo, but they can sometimes be a little iffy with their science, since they're quite happy to endorse pseudoscience by saying things like "Many people believe herbal treatments for erectile dysfunction are effective. Here is a list of those supplements". That's not science, so it pays to read WebMD with a critical eye. Disclaimer: I made that quote up as an example. WebMD did not say that, but it typifies their attitude about posting unproven folk remedies and anecdotal evidence.

But just for fun, What does WebMD say about dandruff and hair loss?

Thinning hair and dandruff don't share the same cause. Thinning hair is about your hair. Dandruff is about the skin on your scalp.
The way some guys treat hair loss can make their dandruff worse, says New York dermatologist Michele Green, MD.
Everyone sheds some hair, and men often notice it in the shower. Seeing their hair float toward the drain makes some men quit washing their hair, Green says. That's a mistake, especially if you're prone to dandruff.
"They feel like they lose more hair when they wash, so they stop, and that's not that healthy. In fact, it's just the opposite," she says. "If you have dandruff, you should be washing your hair every day or every other day."
Washing your hair makes little difference in the amount of hair you lose, says Jeffrey Benabio, MD, a dermatologist for Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. If you avoid washing your hair for a few days, you'll see more hair in the shower when you finally do reach for the shampoo.
It's as if your hair loss is making up for lost time. "It falls out a bit if you wash every day and a lot if you wash every 3-4 days, because it accumulates on the days you don't wash," Benabio says.
The bottom line: Skipping the shampoo doesn't help your dandruff, and it doesn't slow hair loss. So you might as well lather up.
Hair Loss Medications and Dandruff
Green says minoxidil, which is used to treat thinning hair, can cause dandruff-like flaking as a side effect. The alcohol in minoxidil can dry out your scalp, and after a few months of treatment, dandruff may set in.

Hm! Pretty good summary, there, WebMD! Well done. Dandruff doesn't mean you're going bald, but it's still gross, and most people who look at you will think you're a greasy slob. So, wash your head.

Here's a crop of the picture from today's ad. The simulated dandruff (probably soap flakes or something so it would show up on camera) looks decidedly gross, but the lady is decidedly super-not-gross at all. She's a bit of all right! Maybe you can find some use for this picture? You never know. Better right click it into your hard drive's "images of personal grooming shame" folder just in case. Come on, don't pretend you don't have one. You're welcome!

Click for 1600 px wide.

DuPont Plastics - Brushing both sides of your brain.

It's easy to forget that Nylon is a trademarked name owned by the DuPont corporation, but it is. It's also weird to imagine that, before there was Nylon, toothbrushes were made with natural bristle, which means "pig hair". Bleah.

In this ad, DuPont would like you to believe that the very best paint brushes are nylon, but that's not necessarily true. Nylon brushes are more durable than natural hair, because the fibers don't have tiny pores in them, which trap paint, making them harder to get really clean. Plus, nylon tolerates the caustic chemicals used to clean out oil-based paints better than natural brushes do. But for the smoothest brush stroke, and sheer softness, you can't beat a real bristle brush, like sable. They're just harder to take care of.

Anyhoo, I never had a toothbrush made from natural bristle. I'm sure if I grew up with one, I would think nothing of it. But, since the stuff I clean my teeth with has always been a space-age polymer, I can say that rubbing pig hairs all over my teeth sounds weird. Just like someone in the future will think that meat not grown in a lab, that used to be a living animal, sounds freaky as hell. Of course, there are people all over the place now that think all meat is grody, but you know what I mean.

Did DuPont expect us to each have two hair brushes, one for the left and one for the right? Couldn't you just flip the brush over and have it fit your other hand? of course, from a marketing standpoint, there could be nothing better than making everyone buy two of something they only need one of. And when you're DuPont, the idea of every American running out to buy two hairbrushes must have made their accountants' pants tight.

Dream on, guys. Nobody's in that big a hurry to brush their hair, even if they had the dexterity to do a passable job with both hands simultaneously.

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Lifebuoy - Slinker and stinker.

You stink. If not now, then you will soon. We owe a debt of gratitude to marketing for teaching us that we stink, and we need to buy their product to fix it. Lifebuoy was - is! -  a soap company that, when I first heard of them, I thought was called "Life Boy". More on that later. Here's the dramatic ad from 1935.

Life Buoy is careful to make clear in the very first panel that they are married. As we read on, it becomes obvious that the only reason Wife didn't marry that other loser is because he stank. Soon, we learn that if you stink, you can't smell your own stink. The happy ending is a relationship based on the bedrock of not stinking. Surely their love will stand the test of time...

"Oh, darling. Do you remember that marvelous evening we spent sipping champagne under the lights of the Eiffel Tower? It was ever so non-smelly! Truly it was!"

"How could I forget? Just as I cannot forget the week we spent in that quaint villa in Mallorca with your parents. The sands were so odor-free. I could hardly believe the lack of stink. It was grand. The gulls were especially odorless as they danced above the sparkling water."

"My love, let's never have an odor! Never ever!"

"Oh, we shan't, my dear. Never a whiff. To this I pledge."


To sum up, the message of the ad is this:
1) If you stink, you won't know it.
2) If you stink, you will never find love.
3) Unless you use Life Buoy, items 1 and 2 are certain. So, be constantly afraid of them and use Life Buoy.

When A Christmas Story appeared on HBO in 1982, I had never seen anything so funny before, (except for maybe Monty Python, and Mom would have flipped if she found out my brother let me watch it with him). A Christmas Story was the first time I had ever heard of Life Buoy soap, and the auto-correct in my young brain made it into "Life Boy". Why would I hear it differently? I did know what a "buoy" was, but the circular flotation device you throw to a drowning person was a thing I understood to be a "life preserver". A "buoy" was floating marker weighing hundreds of pounds, with a bell and maybe a light on it that you find tethered in a harbor or something. I had no idea what a "life buoy" was. In my mind, if you threw a buoy at a person who fell overboard, you would stand a good chance of killing them. Also, in the movie, narrator Gene Shepherd (from Indiana) pronounced the phrase exactly like "life boy", while my Chicagoan family pronounced the word more like "boo-wee".

There's a fairly great podcast produced by the CBC (Canadian broadcasting Company) called Under the Influence. It's written and hosted by Terry O'Reilly, an actual ad man of many years. He did an episode on "the marketing of shame", and how shame is a thing that sort of doesn't exist any more. This episode covers the invention of "B.O." in the 1800s. It's really interesting. He even uses a Life Buoy ad as the thumbnail for the episode.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/shame-the-secret-tool-of-marketing-1.2801801

One of the things from one of my former relationships that I recall with some degree of pride is that my ex-girlfriend (at the time, just my "girlfriend") once told me that she had never smelled my B.O. Apparently, I never stank. Hooray for preventative shame. At least I got that right.

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Stacomb - The very picture of manhood.

Listen up, hair-havers! If you want to be as handsome and respectable as a College Man, the hair goo of choice is Stacomb. Observe this 1927 ad for proof...

The secret to that shiny varnished hair helmet is Stacomb. It helps your hair "stay combed". That's why the name is so clever, in case you couldn't tell what they did there.

So, with a heapin' helpin' of Stacomb on your head, you can be the very model of admirable manhood - exactly like every college man, all of whom are men, and conduct themselves as men, which is a type of grownup, by the way, which means they always conduct themselves as model citizens and almost never ever act like felons or sociopaths. Here's a picture of a grownup college man, by the way, to help you understand how reassured you should feel if you wake in the middle of the night to find him standing at the foot of your bed, watching you sleep, in a perfectly admirable and manly way. Nighty-night!

Schick Powershave.

The Fifties were slow roasted in rich creamery sexism. We all know that. Recommended gifts for women in LIFE Magazine typically ran the gamut from cookware to vacuum cleaners. To give a woman a grooming aid even seems like an attack. Imagine her joy at unwrapping  a set of curlers, which I would like to remind you were a popular beauty aid, sixty years ago. "What. You have a problem with my hair? You think I'm ugly? What are you trying to say?"

Men don't get to be like that. An electric shaver? "Thanks sweetie! How did you know my face was a weapon? I'll go blunt it right away!" This reaction is not an option, of course. We have to be thrilled with every gift, even if it's a stick of deodorant.

Of course, the real prejudice going on in this ad is this: Why should only men be allowed to shave their face? Maybe the woman had a horrible five day growth and only with the arrival of the Schick Powershave has her husband been able to caress her mug without drawing blood? Did you ever think of that, you monster?

Some readers may get this next joke. Okay, well, maybe two...

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Little Ads - Get it together, man.

Here are the last three little ads just for guys, from that batch that Alert Reader Steve Miller sent us last week. I promise, tomorrow I'll start doing my frikkin job again. Today's batch of ads are all about getting yourself together and getting with the ladies. Am I right, ladies? I said AM I RIGHT? Yes. Of course I am right that this is what these ads are all about. Thanks for the vacation, Steve!

I wasn't aware that a crew cut could be messy. Apparently, someone thought you need some product on that crazy 'do to keep all half an inch of it under control.

Lifts. Yep, they were real. probably still are (jeez, I really am getting lazy these days). And best of all, there's almost no way she will ever find out you're shorter than you seem, as long as you never ever, for any reason, take off your shoes.

Highest standard of living in the known universe, and it could be yours for $150 a month.

American Radiator Conditioning Systems - "Hot" cha cha!

This 1937 ad from American Radiator Conditioning System shows us a brilliant property of radiant heat principles. If there is enough warmth, a girl can pose comfortably in the dead of winter in a... WHOA!

Holy crap! Look at that! I guess she's definitely not getting cold armpits! Wow. I mean, wow! Man, Patty Smith has nothing on this girl! She's got like fifty o'clock shadow under each arm.

Well, I don't think I can be expected to finish talking about radiant heat versus convection or whatever. Man that's a lot of growth. Hmm. I think this deserves a nice winter-in-Chicago postcard. Please enjoy all the awkwardness it brings to all your family relationships, should you send it out. You're welcome.

Click for big.

Click for big,
if that's what you're into.

Cashmere Bouquet - The smell of love.

Time's a little short today, so this'll be a quickie. Cashmere Bouquet is pushing hard for the "You'll be beating the men off with a stick!" angle in this ad. It's a pretty easy way to move some product - promising women the dream of eternally smelling poofy, and that poofiness drawing the attention of golden-hearted Ken dolls of questionable sexuality.

Fantastic painting though. The loose-but-gorgeous brushwork reminds me of Gil Elvgren, though there were a number of pinup artists who painted in a similar style. There's no signature on the piece, so we can only guess who did it. If you zoom in a little bit to the clothes or flowers, you can see bristle marks and brush strokes plainly. But, the faces are handled a little more carefully , as they're the focal point. The artist still displays the "paintedness" even in the faces. This is the mark of masterful rendering, and it's not easy to get that balance of looseness with realism. Then there's the use of the characters' arms to guide your attention around the composition. Click through to a huge saveable version.

If you like this kind of stuff, there's a Gil Elvgren book published by Taschen that you can get for about ten dollars, which is a steal. Full color plates all the way through. I just picked it up a week ago. It's brilliant reference for anybody who may need to draw or paint some idealized women.

Remmington Auto-Home razor - Distracted driving, fifties style!

I know what you're thinking. "Sure I love talking on my phone while driving, but isn't there a way I can make even better use of the time I spend in my car - time which is otherwise wasted by uselessly paying attention to what the hell I'm doing?" You bet there is. As a citizen of the twenty first century, it is your birthright to do just about anything you want while cruising down the highway at 30 miles per hour with the lane stripe lined up squarely with your license plate... from basting a turkey to reading the newspaper to shaving. Maybe you think that such productive, efficient thinking is new? Think again, grandpa!

In 1957, you could buy a Remmington Rollectric shaver with their Auto-Home feature, which was a cord that plugs into your cigarette lighter. Hallelujah! Shave in the bathroom at work? Unacceptable! Shave before you leave the house like most people? That's for losers! The only sensible time to shave is while piloting a motor vehicle.

Hey, that gives me an idea. Why don't pilots talk on the phone while flying? Some flights can take a long time, and if driving on the phone makes good sense, why not flying? Doctors are busy people too. If you woke up during surgery, you would naturally be reassured to see your surgeon chatting away happily about last night's episode of Mad Men on his phone wile he's up to his elbows in your abdomen, because you would know that he's an efficient multitasker. Why'd you wake up in the middle of surgery? Because the anesthesiologist was exchanging recipes with her mom while dosing you with the Isoflurane, as is her right

"But wait," you say. "Maybe Remmington intended that drivers only use the Auto-Home shaver while the vehicle was parked? Maybe Remmington preferred that people keep their eyes on the road, so that they don't rear end a little girl on a tricycle? Wrong again! Remmington wanted it to be clear that you should shave while driving. They went so far as to include an illustration of a man behind the wheel, one hand steering and one hand shaving - both eyes in the mirror.

Here's an anectode from a friend of mine here at work. The following happened to him: While driving home from work, his car was struck from behind by another vehicle. Fortunately, traffic was moving slowly, rush hour being what it is. He responsibly got out of his vehicle to check on the woman who rear ended him, who had not gotten out of her car. Was she injured? She was unhurt, but looked annoyed, as if he was wasting her time. An unfolded newspaper was on the passenger seat. The woman had been reading the newspaper in traffic, but didn't seem ashamed or guilty about it. What a jerk he was, interrupting her newspaper commute by stopping his car. See? He's part of the problem. It's clear that if everyone read the newspaper while driving, traffic would flow much more smoothly, because no one would ever stop. It's jerks like my friend who wreck everything by looking at the car in front of them and stopping when traffic stops.

Also of note is the standard "Here's what we want you to think it does" diagram of the shaver's action. Every shaver ever since has been accompanied by a cartoon of whiskers being lovingly pulled up from the face and gently clipped below the level of the skin. Sometimes the whiskers are cut twice by a second set of blades. Sometimes they're cut by miniature elves and carefully sanded to a rounded point by little gnomes living in the head of the shaver. These cartoons are fiction. They may as well show a unicorn pushing the whiskers back into the pores with his horn. All mechanical shavers compromise a close shave in favor of convenience and lack of razor nicks. Any guy will tell you the same.

If you want a truly close shave, use a straight razor and Barbasol. Just be sure to do it while driving. If you've got leather seats, you can use them as a strop, to put a finely polished edge on your blade, just before you open your jugular all over your upholstery. You can then use your cell phone to call work and tell them you'll be a little late. I'm sure they'll thank you for making such efficient use of your time.