Throwback Thursday: In 1951, Lysol made feminine-hygiene products

The issue: January 1951

The times: The first recorded polygraph test takes place in the Netherlands; Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul; Shirley Temple announces her retirement from show business.

The sell: Lysol's feminine-hygiene products. The efficacy of vaginal douching has been hotly debated by physicians over the years—considered unnecessary at best and outright harmful at worst. And what of your intimate scent? Should you smell like a Summer's Eve? Peaches? The human body, perhaps? In 1951, advertisers for the popular disinfectant brand Lysol were of the mind that a lapse in perfect vaginal maintenance was destructive, not only to your self-care routine, but your life as a whole. A now-humourous ad in Chatelaine's January issue that year touted the "non-caustic" product's "amazing, [proven] power to kill germs on contact" and encouraged women to use it "as often as needed" to "ensure daintiness." Several references to "the other you" (that's your vagina) and its menacing ability to "destroy your love" may seem over-the-top by today's standards, but the antiseptic soap was actually used as an actual form of birth control by women without access to medically approved options. "Your husband loves the real you," read the ad. "Happy, poised and confident of your feminine hygiene." How about, in 2015, let's all agree to keep Lysol in the shower and out of our "happy, poised, confident" nether regions?

Every Thursday, we bring you selections from our archive of 86 years of Chatelaine, featuring weird and wonderful recipes, vintage fashion and décor, and stories that still resonate today.