See ads for Pursettes: September
1972 (letter testimonial) - August 1973 (letter
testimonial) - February 1974 (cartoon story) -
August 1974 (cartoon story) - October
1974 (cartoon story)
 
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Sanitary Tampon Panty and box (U.S.A.,
from Pursettes, with a box of three free Pursettes tampons inside, 1968)
Tampons, for all their virtues (read an 1945
report about tampon pluses and pad minuses), still sometimes allow leakage
of menstrual discharge. Pursettes, an American tampon
with no applicator, and a lubricated tip to facilitate insertion, came to
the rescue with this white panty. The company used cartoons
and letters directed at teenagers to sell their
tampons; women tend to stay with the menstrual products they use in their
teens, so the companies fought early for their dollars.
Women used to be able to buy all sorts
(and a big listing) of protective underpants,
aprons, etc., against menstrual leakage when pads and tampons worked worse
than they do today. A late example is a panty from Kotex, sold today (2000).
It's a confession of failure. How come we can zoom to the moon but not .
. . ? Priorities, I guess.
In 1997 Tambrands gave the underpants to this museum as part of an
amazing gift of 450 boxes of tampons dating to
the founding of the Tampax company, 1936, plus hundreds of other items,
including more underpants.
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The box lists the components of the panty as Body: 100 percent
acetate tricot; Crotch: Olefin fiber and plasticized acetate.
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I divided the box to speed download.
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Probably the original donor's hand wrote "Zayre Discount
[store], Balt[imore], Md. [Maryland]," followed by what look like the
writer's initials and the date, 2/15/68.
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The box - front, above - which came inside the panty box,
above, measures 2.5" x 1.75" (about 6.4 x 4.6 cm).
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© 2000 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
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