Life, 1921-04-21 · page 31 of 36
Life — April 21, 1921 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical piece by Jim Henry (identified as a Mennen salesman) complaining about women appropriating men's products. The humor relies on **gender role anxieties of the era**: Henry receives letters from women praising Mennen's shaving cream for uses beyond shaving—one uses it as facial cleanser, another for shampooing her baby. His complaint is that if women treat male grooming products as "household utilities," men won't pay premium prices. The satire targets both **female encroachment on male spaces** and **consumer marketing anxiety**—a common 1920s-30s concern as women gained economic independence. The underlying joke: women's practical logic (why buy separate products?) versus commercial interests in maintaining gender-segregated product lines. The ironic final line—"don't tell your wife"—suggests men know women will adopt these products regardless, yet maintain the pretense of male-exclusive domains. The page is primarily **advertising**, using humor to sell Mennen's products and Western vacation travel.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Regarding Women [can’t believe it means anything that reflects on my personal life, but I have been enjoying lately an extraordinarily large correspondence with women. Here is a sample: Dear Jim:(Positively, I don’t know the woman). hink you are real mean. You t have known that your Mennen ug Cream is the most perfect sion soap in the world— Jerfully cleansing but more like cream in its after effects—yet you ever breathed a word of it. discovered it by accident on an bile tour when there wasn’t any the country hotel and I had to husband's shaving cream.” next eight pages were in the in.) ther woman shampoos her baby Mennen’: Now I protest that such liberties are all wrong. Do you suppose that men are going to pay 50‘cents for a big tube of Mennen’s if all the women in the house are going to treat it as a house- hold utility? They have adopted our clothes and jobs and recreations and politics and bad habits, but I insist that they leave our shaving tools alone. Oi course, they are right in saying that Mennen’s is an absolutely pure, bland soap without a trace of free sstic. That is why Mennen lather is so soothing—I might almost say healing. it was created for just one purpose—scientifically to reduce a man’s beard to a condition of relaxation so that the razor simply removes the lather— you aren't conscious of any beard pruning at all. Send 15 cents tor my demonstrator tube. Use plenty of water and don't rub in the lather with your fist. Above all, don’t tell your wife. ° bene (Mennen Salesman) THe Mennen Company NewarK, J. USA. All the West is Vacation land “Write now for free booklet 'N the West th re a hundred wonder- regions awaiting you this vacation-time —each different. Send for the free book about the place that interests you: Colorado—“The Playground of the Na- tion,” and Utah, “The Promised Land,” Rocky Mountain National-Estes Park —a natural, wild and beautifulimmensity of outdoors, a refuge of peaceful beauty, a haven of quietness. Yellowstone Park—spectacular, mys- terious—“The Wond Geyser-Land of America. Glacier Park—exciting in its vastness, terrific in its gran- deur—home of the Blackfeet Indians. The West is a fascinating picture-book whose pages you 583 The National Park Ling may turna lifetime and always find some- thing new, something thrilling. Beside the great parks and Colorado play- grounds, there are, for instance: the ro- mantic Big Horn Mountains, the historic “Baffalo Bill” country in Wyoming; South Dakota's Black Hills, the charmed land of the Pacific Northwest and glori- ous California, Go, when your fancy dictates, one way and return another, at no extra cost—stay as long as you de- sire. The map shows how the Burlington just naturally fits in to advantage. P, S, EUSTIS Passenger Traffic Manager CB&@QRR. Chicago comicbooks.com