In the pink over cleaner customers

Society took a shine to cleanliness — and the products it entailed, writes Ian Cole

SOMEWHERE in the late 1950s and early 1960s, households began to be bombarded with advertisements on the wireless, in newspapers and in magazines for the necessity of products to improve cleanliness. The advertised products not only targeted body cleanliness but also our clothes and the condition of our floors.

Body cleanliness was attacked on two fronts, externally and internally. Our teeth became an easy object for improvement. Pepsodent toothpaste ran the ad: “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, When you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.”

Good heavens! Does that mean when we were kids our teeth were yellow? Crikey! We really did need to do something. Conversely, however, in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical South Pacific, Bloody Mary didn’t need Pepsodent even though she chewed betel nuts (well, so the song said). Internally also, our bodies as kids may have been subject to doses of any of a number of products. Castor oil, Waterbury’s Compound, Scott’s Emulsion and Senega and Ammonia may have been believed by our parents to cleanse our insides. If we were moody, maybe Laxettes might help. For our hair, Blue Clinic shampoo was going to make us too clean for dandruff, while Californian Poppy was available for us to look smart as well. Palmolive soap facials were to help people to look younger, and one can only wonder if previous generations had been so inundated with ideas for things to benefit their bodies.

The answer may well be “Yes”. Back in the 1870s, a product called Women’s Tonic was produced by Lydia Pinkham. It was made famous by The Scaffold in 1968, when they sang about the benefits of Lydia Pinkham’s “medicinal compound”:

“Let’s drink a drink a drink To Lily the pink, the pink, the pink

The saviour of the human race. For she invented medicinal compound.

Most efficacious in every case”.

So I guess what goes around, comes around. And in the 1950s and ’60s, the cleanliness of clothes became a target and therefore so did washing products. Packets of Persil were prizes on the wireless, especially I think on one of Jack Davey’s shows. Our parents were anxious about our clothes being clean, especially socks and underwear. I mean, what if we were run over on the way to school? If we were pinned underneath a tram, it was a bonus that we had clean socks and underwear. Of course, a circular tin of household Nugget was always in the cupboard to make sure our shoes shone.

For cleaning the house, numerous products became available, including Ajax, Mr Sheen and Mr Clean, while the Flick Man had been available for some time making sure there were “No white ants on the floor, borers in the door or silverfish galore”. Vacuum cleaners began to be a normal household item, such that the verbs “vacuuming” and “hoovering” entered the vernacular.

The old saying was always “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”.

Some parents with little kids in the house, or grandparents who babysit the little ones during the week, might often like to change the saying to “Cleanliness is next to — impossible”.

Pressures for cleanliness can therefore beset generations as we are witnessing with COVID, but as I said, what goes around, comes around.

I know a little two-year-old at the moment who, as he put his hands out before eating, uttered his very first foursyllable word.

He said, “Sanitiser!”