Life, 1918-07-18 · page 36 of 36
Life — July 18, 1918 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **product advertisement**, not political satire. It's a 1918 Woodbury's Facial Soap ad from *Life* magazine. The page features a portrait photograph of an attractive young woman alongside soap products. The ad's headline, "Blackheads are a confession," frames skin blemishes as a personal failing—suggesting that having blackheads implies poor hygiene or wrong skincare choices. The copy appeals to vanity and shame, promising that Woodbury's treatment booklet ("A Skin You Love to Touch") will solve the problem. This represents **early 20th-century beauty advertising strategy**: creating insecurity about appearance, then offering a commercial solution. There are **no political cartoons or caricatures** on this page. The "satire" inherent here isn't intentional—it's retrospectively apparent to modern readers in how aggressively the ad weaponizes shame about natural skin conditions to sell products. The phrase "a confession" is particularly revealing of the era's attitudes toward female appearance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Blackheads LACKHEADS sion that you wrong method of cleansing for your type of skin. are a confes- are using the Try the treatment given in the Wood- bury booklet, “A Skin You Love to Touch,” and see how ly you can keep your skin free from this disfig- uring trouble. This booklet, containing the most fa- mous treatments ever formulated for all the commoner skin troubles, is wrapped around every cake of Woodbury’s Facial Soap. Geta cake today, and begin at once the treatment for your particular trouble. A 25c cake is sufficient for a month or six weeks of any Woodbury Facial treatment and for general cleansing use for that time. Woodbury’s is on are a contession sale at drug stores and toilet goods counters throughout the United States and Canada. Send for sample cake of soap with booklet of famous treatments and samples of Woodbury’s Facial Cream and Facial Powder. Send 5 cents for a trial size cake (enough for a week or ten days of any Woodbury Facial treatment) together with the booklet of treatments, “A Skin You Love to Touch.” Or for 12¢ we will send you the treatment booklet and samples of Woodbury’s Facial Soap, Facial Cream and Facial Powder. Address The Andrew Jergens Co., 1007 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. ve in Canada, address The reens Co., Limited, 1007 Sherbrooke Street, Perth, Ontario, Woodbury's Facial Soap Joly 18, 1918