Angela Davis, ‘“Oh no, nothing, we didn't learn anything”: Sex Education and the Preparation of Girls for Motherhood, c.1930–1970’, History of Education 37 (2008), pp. 661–77, here pp. 661, 667, 670. LSE, 6WIM/P/01/04, Women in Media, Vaginal Deodorants 1970–72, Press Cuttings: Obstetrics and Gynaecology, November 1970; She, January 1969. IBAA, BU, IBA/0131, 8014/4/5/1, Sanitary Protection Viewers’ Correspondence 1972–1979, 11 July 1972; Amy Whipple, ‘Speaking for Whom? The 1971 Festival of Light and the Search for the “Silent Majority”’, Contemporary British History 24 (2010), pp. 319–39.

London School of Economics Women's Library (LSE), 6WIM/B/03, Women in Media, Vaginal Deodorants 1972–1973, Cuttings from IPC Marketing Manual, 1971. IBAA, BU, IBA/0131, 8014/4/5/1, Sanitary Protection Viewers’ Correspondence 1972–1979, 31 July 1972. WBA, Company Archives 390, ‘Planning for Profit: Planning Your Chemist Counter’, Winter 1971/2, pp. 3–5. Apply daily after bath or shower to absorb residual moisture and leave you feeling more comfortable.

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The IBA's responsibilities included setting guidelines on advertising content, quantity and timings, and monitoring the quality of programme content on commercial television and radio broadcasts. IBAA, BU, IBA/0131, 8014/4/5/1, ‘Sanitary Protection Viewers’ Correspondence 1972–1979, Letter 30 November 1972. See Frank Mort, Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 242, pp. 348–49 for the cultural construction of ‘swinging London’. What's more, Femfresh products have enriched ingredients to create an extra layer of protection for the freshness. Their offerings include daily washing care, soothing wipes, spray deodorants, and more. These products are simply effective and offer women a fresh feeling and confidence all day long. LSE, 6WIM/B/03 Vaginal Deodorants 1972–1973, Vaginal Deodorant Working Group, 13 August 1972. WBA, WBA/BT/BH/CPD/4/3/3, Femfresh 1/2 957, Cutting from Daily Telegraph, 31 November 1971.

Galvanised by the Femfresh advert and an erroneous understanding that the IBA had newly authorised vaginal deodorant advertising on television (which had, in fact, been allowed since 1969), WiM wrote to Brian Young, Director General of the IBA, calling for its Advertising Advisory Committee to overturn the authorisation. In the letter, WiM cited medical opinion to argue that vaginal deodorants were unnecessary and dangerous, as not only had they caused irritation in some women, but they could mask odours resulting from conditions requiring medical attention. WiM also claimed that the advertising itself could be harmful. They wrote that the adverts were ‘designed … to make some women ashamed that their sexual organs might be offensive to others’. This shame could ‘prevent the success of their social and emotional experience’. They questioned why the IBA would allow ‘the advertising of such a socially useless and medically harmful product’ while maintaining a ban on the ‘advertising of contraceptives’, highlighting the hypocrisy of censorship around sexual topics. Young replied, reassuring the ‘Ladies’ of WiM that the advert was ‘very discreet and makes no explicit reference to the use of the product’. 68We all use various skin products for the different parts of our bodies. Similar to shampoos that can irritate your face and leave your hair feeling less than perfect, using the wrong products on your vulval skin that protects your vagina, may result in irritation or itching. Femfresh in particular targeted this kind of campaign at adolescent girls aged thirteen to eighteen, hoping to instil a life-long habit in them. We can see this explicitly in an advert from 1972 in which a very young, white woman is depicted sitting with legs apart, staring straight at the camera, smiling. Split down the middle from head to toe, she is dressed half in school uniform and half completely naked. One of her breasts is fully on display. The camera's gaze looks up her skirt, the unclothed half of her genitals hidden by shadow. Text highlighted the role Femfresh should play in the transition from girlhood to womanhood; ‘even when you've left your gymslip behind … you don't outgrow … the need for intimate freshness’. 58 The text explained that ‘the more woman you are, the more you need Femfresh’, explicitly linking the deodorant with a womanhood which was both feminine and desirable, and in need of careful management lest it be offensive to others. Young women were encouraged to form ‘the Femfresh habit – you'll never grow out of it’. Femfresh's approach in this campaign presented odour as an expected part of womanhood. Whilst still relying on the shame inherent in such products and played on by earlier ads, it normalised vaginal odour as a problem shared by all women and solved individually by buying and using Femfresh.

Femfresh is one of the leading skincare brands, offering delicate intimate care products. The company is known for its products specially designed to care for the unique pH of your intimate skin. Their range of products can help you maintain a healthy pH level in your sensitive intimate area while providing a long-lasting feeling of freshness. Emily Robinson etal., ‘Telling Stories about Post-war Britain: Popular Individualism and the “Crisis” of the 1970s’, Twentieth Century British History 28 (2017), p. 283. Letters articulated where such women drew the line and how they demarcated spaces in which intimate topics could be discussed. One woman, eager not to be dismissed as easily offended, explained how she was not ‘a prude’ and ‘neither is the girl in the chemist's shop’ with whom she had spoken about the adverts. Despite selling sanitary products and vaginal deodorants ‘all day long’, the shop assistant ‘said that on seeing the [television] advert for the latter, her eyes “popped out of her head” and she was acutely embarrassed’. 112 By introducing the chemists – which could also be a space of codes and secrecy, ‘STs’ (sanitary towels) and brown paper bags – as a third space in which vaginal deodorants and tampons could be discussed, this complainant emphasised just how unnecessary and inappropriate she felt it was to advertise on television. Despite Young and Graham's initial irritation that WiM was targeting television advertising before magazine advertising, it seemed that for the women watching and reading, television was the greater problem. For many the sense of shame invoked by the product itself and played on by print advertisements was only truly realised when it was brought forth and enacted in front of an audience by television adverts broadcasting it into communal spaces; when it was witnessed by those who mattered (in actuality and in complainants’ imaginations). A matter of taste In the early 1970s, Women in Media (WiM) – an organisation of female journalists loosely aligned with the Women's Liberation Movement – started a campaign against vaginal deodorant advertising in lieu of being able to halt production or ban sales of the sprays altogether. Their campaign drew attention to the unpleasant physical reactions that some women experienced on using these products; stinging, sensitivity rashes and urinary tract infections. They highlighted what they saw as the adverse psychological effects of vaginal deodorants and their advertising, in which a coded language of ‘freshness’ linked femininity with shame and appealed to women's fear of undesirability and embarrassment around bodily functions like perspiration, menstruation and discharge. Due to their connections to print media, WiM's campaign against vaginal deodorant advertising focused primarily on television advertising, seen as an easier target. Their lobbying attempts and letters to newspapers were swept up in coverage stimulated by the decision of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) – the UK regulatory body for commercial television – to allow the tampon brand Lil-lets to run a three-month advertising trial in the summer of 1972. 2 The advertising of vaginal deodorants and sanitary protection on television became inextricably linked in reporting. WiM's campaign, the wider media discussion sparked by the Lil-lets ad and the adverts themselves provoked women of varying ages and political dispositions to write to the IBA to complain about adverts for both products throughout the summer until the decision was made, in October 1972, to ban advertising for vaginal deodorants and sanitary protection from television as a matter of good taste or decency.Developed in the 1960s, vaginal deodorants were a new technological response to a much longer concern; that of feminine hygiene. From regular washing, to douching and liberally using talcum powder, women had a variety of methods for maintaining ‘freshness’ before the wipes and aerosol sprays created specifically as intimate deodorants. One Mass Observer, born in 1947, remembered wondering about her mother's ‘special flannel that hung under the sink, separate from the face flannel’, the purpose of which she claimed to only fully understand once she became sexually active. 9 Another recalled buying a douche when she married in 1951, only for her doctor to tell her to ‘throw the damned thing away … a normal healthy body could look after itself’. 10 In 1964, the British Medical Journal warned doctors treating pregnant women for discharge that douching should not to be permitted and instead told them to advise women to bathe and apply powder to stay ‘comfortable’. 11 By this time, British pharmacies were selling Femfresh vaginal deodorants which took the form of scent-impregnated ‘towelettes’ in sealed sachets. Shortly after, a Swiss company called Bidex combined an anti-bacterial agent with an emollient, a scent and a propellant into an aerosol spray. 12 In 1966, American firm Alberto-Culver developed FDS (Feminine Deodorant Spray), a similar product, with Femfresh developing a range of sprays soon after. The vaginal, intimate or feminine deodorant market soon proliferated, offering consumers an array of sprays, talcum powders, towels and tissues to be used on the ‘outer vaginal area’ in conjunction with regular washing. 13 IBAA, BU, IBA/0131, 8014/4/5/1, Sanitary Protection Viewers’ Correspondence 1972–1979, 22 November; 10 November 1972. IBAA, BU, IBA/0131, 8014/4/5/1, Sanitary Protection Viewers’ Correspondence 1972–1979, 5 September 1972. Daily Intimate Wash that features a hint of soothing aloe vera to keep your intimate skin happy the entire day.