The Muse Parlor Folio · The 1910s
The Magazine Age
The glossy page becomes a stage, and one advertisement teaches an industry how to sell a feeling.
In 1911 a copywriter named Helen Lansdowne Resor pairs Woodbury's Facial Soap with a man about to kiss a woman's hand, under a line that promises touch rather than cleanliness. A skin you love to touch is the first use of sex appeal in American advertising, and modern beauty advertising is born.
The counter arrives with it. Pompeian, Hudnut's Three Flowers, and Djer-Kiss build mass powder and skincare brands on the new full page, and scent moves from the chemist to the department store, where a woman can buy the feeling the page has sold her.
“Modern beauty advertising is born, selling desire rather than soap.”
