Vintage Beauty Advertisements: A Fashion Moment with Canadian Home Journal 1941
I think it is about time we took another look into this April 1941 edition on the Canadian Home Journal, don’t you think? The last time we took a look inside was back in March, with a spread about Easter fashions. This time I am sharing a collection of the beauty advertisements!
There are quite a lot of ads for face creams and “cocktails”, several advertisements featuring movie stars, and of course all of the ads showing the ideal 1940’s look! Interestingly, unlike other beauty ads I’ve seen, none of these mention the war, even though they were right in the midst of it in 1941. There are quite a few pictures today, (a lot of which are Woodbury ads!) but as I was flipping through it again, I realized that I missed a few, so I think that those will make another post sometime in the future!
I love this last ad- I wish that my powder came in containers this pretty! Modern makeup just doesn’t come anywhere near as close in elegance!
January 26, 2019 @ 5:22 pm
Thank You for sharing these lovely Vintage Advertisements. The ladies are beautiful. Loretta Young is a favorite of mine. She was such a talented actress.
Marilyn
January 27, 2019 @ 10:03 pm
You are welcome 😊 I’ve actually never seen Loretta Young in any movie before, but I should see if I could find one to watch!
January 27, 2019 @ 8:43 am
I need some of that Campana.
Did you ever watch Mad Men? We are watching it again (third time for me) and I never tire of it. They talk all about creating the ads of the time and use all the same tricks they use in advertising today.
Suzanne
http://www.suzannecarillo.com
January 27, 2019 @ 10:02 pm
I could use some freshening of the skin too 😉
And no I haven’t, but it’s so interesting (and sometimes a bit scary!!) to learn about the psychology behind advertising!
January 27, 2019 @ 10:05 pm
These are all so fabulous! I wish I could try some of those products, they sound so interesting!
February 5, 2019 @ 9:16 pm
Yes- they sound so interesting- except they are all probably full of toxic ingredients 🙁
February 19, 2019 @ 6:33 pm
How did I miss this when you first posted? I did my PhD thesis on advertising history, and so I always love seeing these. It is fascinating learning the stories behind them.
J. Walter Thompson was responsible for the Lux ‘9 out of 10 film stars’ campaign in most of their markets. They had to have signed releases from the stars (mostly women), and they sent copies to all the offices who did local advertisements. One of the women I interviewed who worked for the Sydney office during the war told me that they all had allocated file folders to be in charge of during an air raid warning (mostly warnings in Sydney!). Every time they had a drill, they had to carry the files down 12 flights of stairs. One woman had those statements, and her file stayed much the same. Some other secretary had something related to employees, which got bigger and heavier as the war progressed!
While a lot of the advertisements were created in the ‘parent’ offices in North America, they did react to local events. When Ava Gardner arrived in Australia to film ‘On the Beach’, she was interviewed on arrival at the airport, and on being asked what she used to make her skin look so good, she answered that she was ‘just a soap and water girl.’ An account director in the Melbourne office got in contact with Sydney, all excited, and asked ‘is she one of the 9 out of 10?’ They checked the file, she was, and less than a week after she arrived, there was an advertisement in the Australian Women’s Weekly proclaiming ‘Ava says she’s a soap and water girl – and her soap is Lux!’.
As fascinating as they are, there is also a lot of problematic material in these advertisments, particularly the way they enshrine a very white, western aesthetic as a normative standard of beauty.
February 24, 2019 @ 6:35 pm
I didn’t know any of this history- thanks so much for sharing! It’s so interesting to find out the story behind the advertising. And I can’t imagine having to carry all of those files every time there was an air raid!
March 11, 2019 @ 9:55 am
I love seeing vintage photos.