Vintage ADS: The Soap
April 29, 2021
Vintage ad offers cleaning tips
By Leslie Drollinger Stratmoen
Reference: March 1922 McCall’s
Reading old soap advertisements can be helpful, especially if you’re cleaning vintage clothing. You really can get ideas even though you can’t typically find the soap.
Case in point is an advertisement I found in my March 1922 issue of McCall’s magazine for Fels-Naptha, pitched as “The Golden Bar with the Clean Naptha Odor,” whatever that was.
According to the advertisement, you, too, could enjoy “Six Savings from Soap” if you used Fels-Naptha for your washing and general housework -- the savings of: clothes, hands, time, fuel, work and money.
I’ll address them individually to show you what I’ve learned.
Artist Unknown
From McCall’s magazine, 1922, March Issue
No 1: Saving of Clothes
“When you rub clothes between a hard soap and a hard wash-board, that means wearing away the fabric and hurrying it to the rag-bag.”
Ok, that’s informative, but it’s the following paragraph that caught my eye.
“Those dainty undergarments with edgings and insertions you crochet with your own hands, are too precious to be worn-out so soon in washing.”
This was so interesting to me because I have a crocheted undergarment from the 1920s that needs cleaning and I found a pattern for the same in an old craft book. So, this ad tells me how to do that and confirms that many women did actually crochet their own undergarments.
This is my crocheted camisole I’ve had for years thinking it was missing its bottom half, only learning recently that it’s actually the bra of its day.
Here’s the pattern I mentioned that I found in my Home Arts and Entertainment magazine, supplement to Woman’s Weekly, 1922 Edition.
No. 2: Saving of Hands
There’s no need to risk scalding your hands in boiling water when washing clothes, according to the ad, because this soap works in any temperature. Oh, my, I had no idea that was a risk.
No. 3: Saving of Time
Soak and rinse and the washing is done.
“Fels-Naptha makes the water soapy, ready to flush away the dirt when you douse the clothes up and down a few times. Extremely soiled places, of course, will need a light rubbing. Rinse and the washing is done.”
It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Well, to us, nowadays, maybe, because we’re doing it with a washing machine.
Artist Unknown
From McCall’s magazine, 1922, March Issue
No. 4: Saving of Fuel
Since you’re not needing to boil water, you don’t waste gas or coal, it says. Good point, but I wouldn’t have thought of that. And for those who had a washing machine, the ad says they’d save on electricity because the soap loosens the dirt before the washer even starts, so you needn’t run the washer as long.
No. 5: Saving of Work
With Fels-Naptha soap there was no need to spend the morning bending over a washtub or rubbing “your strength away on the washboard,” the ad says. There was also no boiler to lift on and off the stove and no lifting of clothes in and out of the boiler.
“You will never dread the weekly wash when you do it the Fels-Naptha way, because it doesn’t tire you out.”
Yes, I’d say so, and they’ve hooked me now. The ad goes on to say, that even if you have the washing “done out” with Fels-Naptha…
“The clothes come home sweeter and cleaner and with less wash wear-and-tear. Or, if the washing is done at home for you with Fels-Naptha, the strength saved enables your laundress to do the ironing, too, the same day.”
Here, again, this tells me that many a reader at this time must have sent their washing out or had their own laundress. That, to me, was surprising.
No. 6: Saving of Money
As printed in the March 1922 issue of McCall’s magazine
Wow. Along with listing the afore mentioned savings for money in fuel, time and clothes, the ad says you’ll save on doctor bills by preventing colds from overheating and other illness from over-exertion. Man, they covered everything, here.
“The only way you can make this all-round saving from soap is to be sure you get Fells-Naptha – the original and genuine naptha soap – of your grocer.”
Yes, the advertising gurus of the time certainly made sure to tug at all the washing drudgery heart strings.
Surprisingly enough, after googling this brand, I discovered the soap’s still available, sold as part of the Dial Corporation, a subsidiary of Henkel. I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to. I’ll make sure, however, not to use any found at an antique store, for that old stuff is dangerous. Fels-Naptha, come to find out, no longer has naphtha in it because the flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture was found to be of cancer risk.
Yeeks? Good to know. And there you have it. The how-to on savings of: clothes, hands, time, fuel, work and money, all in one scoop, of laundry detergent, that is.
