A digital exhibition

Selling Clean

Soap, Hygiene and Modern Advertising

Soap is one of the most ordinary things in daily life. But its advertising has never been ordinary. From Victorian trade cards to modern skincare packaging, companies have used design to connect soap with purity, beauty, health, comfort and trust. This exhibition follows that visual story and asks what these messages still mean today.

Begin the exhibition

Cleanliness is next to godliness.A. & F. Pears; lithograph after H. Stacy Marks, approximately 1890

Exhibition introduction

The Big Idea

Soap advertising did not only sell soap. It sold a way of life. Historical ads connected cleanliness with ideas such as respectability, health, beauty, family care and social status. Modern hygiene brands often use different visual styles, but they still use color, packaging, emotion and lifestyle language to build trust.

Visitors should leave understanding that modern advertising did not appear suddenly. Many of its persuasive visual strategies began in earlier print culture.

The Trade Card Makes an Impression

In the late nineteenth century, trade cards helped businesses enter homes, stores and personal collections. These small printed advertisements used decorative borders, illustrations, slogans and product claims to make an everyday item feel memorable. Soap companies learned that a card could sell more than a bar of soap: it could sell a first impression.

CLEAN BATHS WITH SAPOLIO.
approximately 1870–1900

Object 1: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
A. & F. Pears; lithograph after H. Stacy Marks, approximately 1890
Source record and rights
Holding institution
Wellcome Collection
Accession
wegxe7mq
Rights
Public domain
Image credit
Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark.
View the Wellcome Collection object record
Two monks are washing in a small plain room. One of them has his hands in a basin. The other one is shaving in front of a mirror. Behind them there is a Pears poster with printed recommendations on it. So this is an advertisement with a second advertisement inside it. Under the picture there is a famous line about religion. Cleanliness is next to godliness. The company took this line and put it next to a bar of soap. I think the monks are a joke and also a serious argument. If even these men wash their hands then washing must be good for the soul. The whole exhibition starts from this idea.
Context
Pears was spending thirty to forty thousand pounds a year on advertising in the 1880s. Its manager Thomas Barratt liked to buy pictures from Royal Academicians, because a respected painter made the soap look respectable too. Henry Stacy Marks became a full Academician in 1878. The sentence under the picture comes from a sermon by John Wesley.
Object 7: Sapolio.
Maker not recorded, approximately 1870–1900
Source record and rights
Holding institution
Boston Public Library
Accession
commonwealth:7m01bz99s
Rights
Public domain
Image credit
Boston Public Library, via Digital Commonwealth. No known copyright restrictions.
View the Boston Public Library object record
This small card is printed in one warm brown ink and it pretends to be a sculpture. A winged child stands on a rough block. He carries a big shell on his shoulder. The name of the brand is not printed over the picture. It is carved into the front of the block, like a sculptor made it there. I like this idea very much. A soap for cleaning pots behaves like fine art. The card wants you to keep it and not to throw it away. People collected these cards and put them in albums. So a card that looked like a real picture sold soap for many years.
Context
Sapolio was made from 1869 by the three sons of Enoch Morgan. The family doctor gave it its name. The company paid writers for verse. Bret Harte wrote a parody of Longfellow which was handed out in 1877. Illustrated trade cards reached the height of their popularity in the 1880s, when people collected them.
Object 8: Clean baths with Sapolio.
Maker not recorded, approximately 1870–1900
Source record and rights
Holding institution
Boston Public Library
Accession
commonwealth:7m01bw88v
Rights
Public domain
Image credit
Boston Public Library, via Digital Commonwealth. No known copyright restrictions.
View the Boston Public Library object record
A woman leans over a bathtub with her sleeves pushed up. She scrubs the inside with a brush while the taps run. On the left a small child stands in a little bath and plays. The slogan is very exact. Clean baths with Sapolio. It promises a clean tub, not a clean body. Sapolio was a soap for scrubbing. Look how the card splits the room in two. One person rests in the water. The other one works. Both of them look happy about it. Her neat dress and tidy hair are part of that. They make heavy work look like nothing.
Context
Advances in chromolithography in the 1870s and 1880s made this flood of colored cards possible. Printers such as Donaldson Brothers of New York and Louis Prang of Boston led the trade. The same soap company later ran the Spotless Town jingles from 1899 to 1905, which turned Sapolio into one of the best advertised products in the world.

Pears’ Soap is a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilization advances.
The first step toward lightening the White man’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness1899

Halftone advertisement. In a central oval, a white naval officer in a pale uniform washes his hands at a basin in a ship's cabin. Small vignettes ringing the oval show warships at sea, crates of Pears' Soap being unloaded on a dock and a man in a wide hat and long coat handing a bar of soap to a seated Black man. Heavy type below reads “The White Man's Burden.” — Object 2: The first step toward lightening the White man’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness
A. & F. Pears, 1899

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Accession: cph.3b32850
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, digital ID cph.3b32850.

View the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division object record

A naval officer washes his hands in his cabin. Around him sit smaller scenes. Warships at sea. Boxes of Pears soap coming off a dock. A man in a wide hat handing a bar of soap to a Black man who is sitting down. The words come from a poem by Rudyard Kipling from that same year. The company turned them into a sales line. The ad calls soap a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilization advances. This one is hard to look at. Nobody has to dig for the racism in it. The advertisement says it out loud.

Context

Kipling’s poem appeared on 4 February 1899, first under the heading An Address to the United States. On the same day fighting began between American forces and Filipino nationalists. The war in South Africa started in October of that year. This advertisement ran a few months later in the advertising pages of Cosmopolitan.

Selling Purity, Beauty and Trust

Soap advertising often connected cleanliness with much bigger ideas. A clean home could suggest good care. A clean child could suggest health. A clean face could suggest beauty or social confidence. These messages helped brands build trust, but they could also create pressure about how people, especially women and families, were expected to look and live.

You need only one soap. Pure. First quality. Not expensive. Will wash anything. No chapping. It floats.
You need only one soap--Ivory soap / the Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York.1898

Large color lithograph poster. A man in a red shirt stands ankle deep in a woodland stream at a camp, bending to wring out a spotted bandana. Behind him are a white canvas tent, laundry strung between pine trees, a coffee pot on a camp table, a leaning rifle, an axe and a shovel. A cake of Ivory soap floats in the water at his feet. Bands of heavy display type read “You need only one soap”, “Ivory Soap” and “It Floats.” — Object 3: You need only one soap--Ivory soap / the Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York.
Strobridge & Co. Lith., 1898

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Accession: ppmsca.05944
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, digital ID ppmsca.05944.

View the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division object record

A man stands in a stream at a camp in the woods. He is wringing out a bandana. Behind him there is a tent, laundry between the pine trees, a coffee pot, a rifle and an axe. A cake of Ivory floats near his feet. This object is very big. It is 113 by 77 centimeters, so people had to read it from the other side of the street. This is why the letters are so large. In this period most soap advertisements spoke to women in the kitchen or in the nursery. This one is different. It sells the same soap to a man who is far from any house. It promises freedom and not good manners.

Context

Strobridge of Cincinnati was most famous for circus posters, which it printed for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey. So this soap poster came from a shop that knew how to shout across a street. Chromolithography needed a separate stone for every color. In February of the same year the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor.

It is mild. It is gentle. It is pure. It does what soap is intended to do: it cleans but it does not injure.
Ivory Soap...It FloatsJanuary 7, 1911

Magazine page. A woman in a patterned robe leans over a bath, one hand steadying a smiling naked baby seated in the water. A cake of Ivory soap floats in front of them with a small paper flag stuck into each end, turning it into a toy boat. Printed text fills the lower third of the page. — Object 4: Ivory Soap...It Floats
Alice Beach Winter, January 7, 1911

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Wikimedia Commons (from The Saturday Evening Post)
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: The Saturday Evening Post, 1911, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

View the Wikimedia Commons (from The Saturday Evening Post) object record

A mother holds her baby in the bath. A cake of Ivory floats in front of them with a little paper flag stuck in each end, so it turns into a toy boat. That idea comes from the letter printed under the picture. A woman wrote in to say she used this exact trick to get a difficult child into the water. Ivory had one odd feature. It floats. Here that becomes help for a tired parent. The words are gentle. It is mild. It is gentle. It is pure. It is a warm little scene. It also shows who was expected to do the washing.

Context

Alice Beach Winter studied at the Art Students’ League in New York. One year after this advertisement, in 1912, she helped to start the radical magazine The Masses together with Max Eastman and John Sloan. Later she became its art editor. The Saturday Evening Post was already selling a million copies every week.

The doctor wants something to clean his surgical instruments. Give him Ivory Soap. Mrs. Jones, who does her own work, complains that her hands are rough and red from washing dishes.
This is the way it goes.December 26, 1908

All-text advertisement set inside an ornamental border of repeating pinwheel motifs. A bold slanted headline reads “This is the Way It Goes”, followed by eight short paired statements, each setting out a household or professional problem and answering it with Ivory Soap. A second bold line at the foot reads “That Is the Way It Goes” and “Order From Your Jobber”, above the name Kelley-Clarke Co., Agents. The advertisement carries no illustration. — Object 5: This is the way it goes.
Procter & Gamble Company, December 26, 1908

Source record and rights

Holding institution: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Accession: ADV0175
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, ADV0175.

View the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections object record

There is no picture here at all. Under a fat headline sit eight short exchanges. Somebody has a problem and Ivory Soap fixes it. This ran in a trade paper. It ends with the words order from your jobber. So the reader is a shop owner, not a customer. That is why it feels so blunt. It does not have to charm anybody. It just lists who is supposed to need soap. A doctor with his instruments. Then Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Jones who does her own work, Mrs. Peter McDonald and Mrs. Paul Thompson. Every woman carries her husband’s name. The one without servants gets pointed out.

Context

A jobber was a wholesaler. He bought in bulk from the maker and sold the goods on to the shops. By 1885 almost every trade had its own paper, so a company could speak to shopkeepers without speaking to customers at all. This page comes from the Trade Register in Seattle.

IT FLOATS. IVORY SOAP 99 44/100% PURE.
Procter & Gamble Company1900

Cover printed in green, brown and cream in an Art Nouveau style. Two swans swim on a still pond enclosed by a heavy curving border of water lilies and lily pads. A bar of Ivory soap floats among the lilies at the top. Lettering worked into the lower border reads “It floats” and “Ivory Soap 99 44/100% pure.” — Object 6: It floats : Ivory Soap, 99 44/100% pure
Procter & Gamble Company, 1900

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive
Accession: b33458844
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: Wellcome Library via Internet Archive. Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.

View the Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive object record

Two swans swim on a lily pond inside a thick Art Nouveau border. A bar of Ivory floats between the water lilies like it grew there. The line in the border says Ivory Soap 99 44/100% pure. That number is the reason why this object is in the exhibition. It sounds like somebody did a real test in a laboratory. The simple word pure can never do this. The picture helps the number. Swans, still water and flowers all mean clean and natural. So the science and the decoration push you in the same direction. Here a measurement works as decoration.

Context

The number came from an analysis which found only fifty six hundredths of one percent of things that were not soap. The Ivory trademark was registered in 1879. Art Nouveau was at its height around 1900. That April the Exposition Universelle opened in Paris and fifty one million people came to see it.

Hygiene in Public and Private Life

Soap was part of private routines, but it was also connected to public health, city life and new ideas about hygiene. This section looks at how advertising moved between the home, the body, the store and public spaces.

CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC BATHS
Public Bath, Dover Street, Boston – Peabody and Stearns1908

Black-and-white photograph of a three-storey brick and stone civic building seen straight on from the street. Three tall round-arched windows fill the main floor above a rusticated stone ground storey with three dark doorways. A carved stone band above the arches reads “CITY OF BOSTON PUBLIC BATHS”. A street lamp stands on the cobbled pavement in front. — Object 9: Public Bath, Dover Street, Boston – Peabody and Stearns
Peabody and Stearns (architects), 1908

Source record and rights

Rights: Public domain
Image credit: The Brickbuilder, 1908, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

View the source record for object 9

This is not an advertisement and this is exactly why it is here. It is a public bath house in Boston, photographed from the street. The words city of Boston public baths are carved in the stone above the arched windows. A bank or a library announces itself in the same way. A building costs a lot of money and takes years to build. When a city carves the reason into the front, it means that washing was a public duty. If you look at this photograph next to the soap advertisements, the difference is very clear. A city could build cleanliness for everybody, or a company could sell it to one person.

Context

The Dover Street bath opened in 1898 and it was the first bath house in Boston to stay open all year. The city had been discussing free baths since 1866 and had fourteen floating baths by 1897. In New York a law of 1895 forced cities above a certain size to provide them. This view was printed in The Brickbuilder in 1908.

COLGATE & CO'S CASHMERE BOUQUET TOILET SOAP.
Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap1888

Object 10: Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap

Unknown, 1888

Source record and rights

Rights: Public domain
Image credit: From Six Months in Mexico, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

View the source record for object 10

There is almost no picture on this page. The words Colgate & Co’s Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap are printed in fat shaded capitals in five curved lines. Thin engraved lines move behind them. The soap appears only in the bottom left corner, as an oval cake with the same words on it. The name does all the work here. Cashmere Bouquet promises something soft and full of flowers before anybody speaks about washing. The letters themselves became the decoration. Nobody explains the brand to you. They only show it and the same mark is on the soap.

Context

Cashmere Bouquet was registered as a Colgate trademark in 1872 and the company calls it the first milled perfumed toilet soap. The source record places this engraving in Six Months in Mexico, a book of 1888 by the reporter Nellie Bly. One year earlier she had published Ten Days in a Mad House about the asylum on Blackwell’s Island.

Then and Now

Modern packaging is often simpler than Victorian advertising. It may use fewer words, less decoration and cleaner space. Still, many familiar ideas remain: freshness, purity, natural ingredients, confidence, care and personal identity. Looking at old and new designs side by side makes those long visual patterns easier to see.

Then

Lithograph of two monks in a bare room. One leans over a basin, washing his hands; the other stands at a small mirror, shaving. On the wall behind them hangs a printed Pears' Soap poster carrying a signed testimonial. Lettering beneath the scene reads “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” — Object 1: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
A. & F. Pears; lithograph after H. Stacy Marks, approximately 1890

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Wellcome Collection
Accession: wegxe7mq
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark.

View the Wellcome Collection object record

Two monks are washing in a small plain room. One of them has his hands in a basin. The other one is shaving in front of a mirror. Behind them there is a Pears poster with printed recommendations on it. So this is an advertisement with a second advertisement inside it. Under the picture there is a famous line about religion. Cleanliness is next to godliness. The company took this line and put it next to a bar of soap. I think the monks are a joke and also a serious argument. If even these men wash their hands then washing must be good for the soul. The whole exhibition starts from this idea.

Context

Pears was spending thirty to forty thousand pounds a year on advertising in the 1880s. Its manager Thomas Barratt liked to buy pictures from Royal Academicians, because a respected painter made the soap look respectable too. Henry Stacy Marks became a full Academician in 1878. The sentence under the picture comes from a sermon by John Wesley.

Now

Color photograph. A smiling woman with long dark curly hair, wearing a red top and a fine chain necklace, sits cheek to cheek with a young child who has light curly hair and is wearing a pale green top and a pink backpack. The child looks upward and smiles. Behind them a city street and pale buildings are thrown out of focus. — Object 11: Keep Beauty Real
Dove (Unilever), No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Dove (Unilever)
Rights: Educational use claimed, for non-commercial scholarly criticism
Image credit: Dove (Unilever). Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.

View the Dove (Unilever) object record

A woman and a small child sit cheek to cheek on a city street. Both of them are smiling and the background is not in focus. Nothing is proved here. There is no product in the picture at all. The image comes from a campaign that the company calls Keep Beauty Real. The pair of this photograph is the old Pears advertisement. If you look at them together, the difference is very big. The old one promised that soap can make a person respectable. This one shows people and nobody asks them to change. So the selling moved to another place. Now it works through a feeling and through the people you see.

Context

Dove began its Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004, after research found that only two percent of women in the world called themselves beautiful. Keep Beauty Real belongs to the twentieth anniversary of that campaign in April 2024, when the company promised never to use AI in place of real people in its advertising.

Then

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive
Accession: b33458844
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: Wellcome Library via Internet Archive. Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.

View the Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive object record

Context

Now

Photograph of a brushed silver gray pump bottle on a plain white background. Small gray lettering on the lower half of the bottle reads “method. Foaming Hand Wash / Savon moussant pour les mains / violet + lavender / violette et lavande / with plant-based cleansers / 300 mL (10 fl oz)”. The bottle carries no illustration and no color beyond the metallic gray. — Object 12: Foaming Hand Wash, Violet + Lavender, 10 fl oz
Method (SC Johnson), No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Method (SC Johnson)
Rights: Educational use claimed, for non-commercial scholarly criticism
Image credit: Method (SC Johnson). Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.

View the Method (SC Johnson) object record

A brushed aluminum bottle stands on a white background. The photograph is taken straight from the front. The only color here is gray metal. Violet and lavender is written in very small letters. It is the name of a smell and not something you can see. The pair of this object is the old Ivory advertisement. If you look at them together, this empty design becomes very interesting. Victorian printers used a lot of color because color was new and expensive. Here the company does the opposite. It takes almost everything away and this is how it shows quality. The official page says the bottle is recyclable and made for refilling.

Context

Method was started in 2000 by Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan. Karim Rashid designed its early bottles and one of them looked like a bowling pin. SC Johnson agreed to buy the company in 2017. Method says that refilling this aluminum bottle saves over ninety six percent of the plastic of its single use bottles.

Modern object

Photograph of a 500 millilitre amber glass pump bottle of Aesop Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash on a plain white background. A rectangular label carries the product name and ingredient text in small type arranged in tight horizontal bands. — Object 13: Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash, 500 mL
Aesop, No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Aesop
Rights: Educational use claimed, for non-commercial scholarly criticism
Image credit: Aesop. Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.

View the Aesop object record

A brown glass bottle with a plain rectangular label stands on a white background. The label has the name of the product and a thick block of very small text in tight lines. There is no picture on it anywhere. It copies a pharmacy. Brown glass, cold spacing and text like a prescription and not like a promise. The older objects in this exhibition used pictures, because a picture helps people to remember a boring product. This bottle has no picture. It asks you to read it and to take it seriously. But both methods do the same work. They make soap look more important than soap. One takes its style from art. This one takes its style from medicine.

Context

Aesop was started in 1987 in Melbourne by a hairdresser called Dennis Paphitis. The company says its packaging follows functional simplicity and that it chooses pharmaceutical grade amber glass because the glass is inert and it keeps ultraviolet light away from the contents. L’Oréal completed its purchase of the company in 2023.

ALL-ONE! DILUTE! DILUTE! OK!
Pure-Castile Liquid Soap, Cherry Blossom Pride limited-edition label2026

Then

Trade card printed in terracotta ink on cream stock. A winged child, modelled as though carved in terracotta, stands on a rough plinth carrying a large shell on one shoulder, with drapery falling from the waist. The word “Sapolio” is lettered across the face of the plinth as if chiselled into the stone. — Object 7: Sapolio.
Maker not recorded, approximately 1870–1900

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Boston Public Library
Accession: commonwealth:7m01bz99s
Rights: Public domain
Image credit: Boston Public Library, via Digital Commonwealth. No known copyright restrictions.

View the Boston Public Library object record

This small card is printed in one warm brown ink and it pretends to be a sculpture. A winged child stands on a rough block. He carries a big shell on his shoulder. The name of the brand is not printed over the picture. It is carved into the front of the block, like a sculptor made it there. I like this idea very much. A soap for cleaning pots behaves like fine art. The card wants you to keep it and not to throw it away. People collected these cards and put them in albums. So a card that looked like a real picture sold soap for many years.

Context

Sapolio was made from 1869 by the three sons of Enoch Morgan. The family doctor gave it its name. The company paid writers for verse. Bret Harte wrote a parody of Longfellow which was handed out in 1877. Illustrated trade cards reached the height of their popularity in the 1880s, when people collected them.

Now

A Dr. Bronner's soap label photographed flat and unrolled, so the whole printed surface is visible at once. The background is a continuous rainbow gradient. Dense small type covers every part of the sheet, including text running vertically up both side margins. Headings include “PRIDE! JOY! SOLIDARITY!”, “ACLU and Dr. Bronner's”, “Family Soapmakers Since 1858”, “18-in-1 Pure-Castile Magic Soap, Cherry Blossom”, “All-One!” and “Dilute! Dilute! OK!”, surrounded by paragraphs of continuous text, an ingredient list and a barcode. — Object 14: Pure-Castile Liquid Soap, Cherry Blossom Pride limited-edition label
Dr. Bronner's, 2026

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Dr. Bronner's
Rights: Educational use claimed, for non-commercial scholarly criticism
Image credit: Dr. Bronner's. Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.

View the Dr. Bronner's object record

The label is photographed flat and open, because this is the only way to see everything on it. Text covers every part of the surface. It even goes sideways along both margins. There is the history of the company, instructions for mixing, a list of ingredients and long paragraphs of argument. The pair of this object is the old Sapolio card. More than a hundred years divide them but they use the same method. They fill the whole surface and they give the buyer something to read. The old card filled the space with decoration. This one fills it with words. The press release says this edition shouts pride, joy and solidarity.

Context

The company was founded in 1948. The family had made soap since 1858 in Laupheim in Germany. All this text began because people at Emanuel Bronner’s public lectures in Pershing Square took the soap and walked away, so he printed the lecture on the label instead. There are more than thirty thousand words on it. The design was reworked in 2015.

One bottle, refill it forever.
Hand Soap Set

Then

Object 10: Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap

Unknown, 1888

Source record and rights

Rights: Public domain
Image credit: From Six Months in Mexico, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

View the source record for object 10

Context

Now

Photograph on a plain white background. A clear glass pump bottle with a white pump holds colourless liquid soap, with the word “BLUELAND” printed in black across the front. Leaning against the bottle are a small kraft-paper sachet reading “BLUELAND Foaming Hand Soap, Free & Clear, net 0.3 oz (8.7 g)” and a round white tablet. — Object 15: Hand Soap Set
Blueland, No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.

Source record and rights

Holding institution: Blueland
Rights: Educational use claimed, for non-commercial scholarly criticism
Image credit: Blueland. Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.

View the Blueland object record

A clear pump bottle, a small paper packet and a round white tablet stand on a white background. The bottle is transparent and there is almost no brand on it. The real product is not in the picture. They sell the idea that you will not buy this bottle a second time. The official page says it very simply. One bottle, refill it forever. The pair of this object is the old Colgate advertisement. On that page the name covered everything and it worked like decoration. Here the name is very small. The company shows you an empty bottle instead. In one hundred years the brand became quiet.

Context

Blueland was launched in 2019 by Sarah Paiji Yoo and John Mascari. It was the first company to sell cleaning tablets like this one across a whole range of products. The company says its products have kept more than one billion single use plastic bottles out of landfill and out of the sea.

Closing reflection

Look Again

The history of soap advertising is also a history of visual persuasion. A package, a slogan, or a small printed card can shape how people think about health, beauty, family and everyday life. The designs in this exhibition ask visitors to look at familiar products with fresh eyes.

Sources

Bibliography

Chicago-style object records generated from the exhibition data.

Object records

Object 1. A. & F. Pears; lithograph after H. Stacy Marks. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” approximately 1890. Wellcome Collection. Accession wegxe7mq. View the source record for object 1
Object 2. A. & F. Pears. “The first step toward lightening the White man’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness.” 1899. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Accession cph.3b32850. View the source record for object 2
Object 3. Strobridge & Co. Lith. “You need only one soap--Ivory soap / the Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York.” 1898. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Accession ppmsca.05944. View the source record for object 3
Object 4. Alice Beach Winter. “Ivory Soap...It Floats.” January 7, 1911. Wikimedia Commons (from The Saturday Evening Post). View the source record for object 4
Object 5. Procter & Gamble Company. “This is the way it goes.” December 26, 1908. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections. Accession ADV0175. View the source record for object 5
Object 6. Procter & Gamble Company. “It floats : Ivory Soap, 99 44/100% pure.” 1900. Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive. Accession b33458844. View the source record for object 6
Object 7. Maker not recorded. “Sapolio.” approximately 1870–1900. Boston Public Library. Accession commonwealth:7m01bz99s. View the source record for object 7
Object 8. Maker not recorded. “Clean baths with Sapolio.” approximately 1870–1900. Boston Public Library. Accession commonwealth:7m01bw88v. View the source record for object 8
Object 9. Peabody and Stearns (architects). “Public Bath, Dover Street, Boston – Peabody and Stearns.” 1908. View the source record for object 9
Object 10. Unknown. “Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap.” 1888. View the source record for object 10
Object 11. Dove (Unilever). “Keep Beauty Real.” No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026. Dove (Unilever). View the source record for object 11
Object 12. Method (SC Johnson). “Foaming Hand Wash, Violet + Lavender, 10 fl oz.” No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026. Method (SC Johnson). View the source record for object 12
Object 13. Aesop. “Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash, 500 mL.” No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026. Aesop. View the source record for object 13
Object 14. Dr. Bronner's. “Pure-Castile Liquid Soap, Cherry Blossom Pride limited-edition label.” 2026. Dr. Bronner's. View the source record for object 14
Object 15. Blueland. “Hand Soap Set.” No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026. Blueland. View the source record for object 15

Scholarly and contextual sources

Course textbook

Eskilson, Stephen J. Graphic Design: A New History.

Graphic design history

Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design.

Books on advertising, empire, and consumer culture

McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Ramamurthy, Anandi. Imperial Persuaders: Images of Africa and Asia in British Advertising. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Loeb, Lori Anne. Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195085969.001.0001.
Richards, Thomas. The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851–1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Vinikas, Vincent. Soft Soap, Hard Sell: American Hygiene in an Age of Advertisement. 1st ed. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992.
Burke, Timothy. Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.

Articles

Massing, Jean Michel. “From Greek Proverb to Soap Advert: Washing the Ethiopian.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 58, no. 1 (1995): 180–201. https://doi.org/10.2307/751510.
Kil, Hye Ryoung. “Soap Advertisements and Ulysses: The Brooke's Monkey Brand Ad and the Capital Couple.” James Joyce Quarterly 47, no. 3 (2010): 417–426. https://doi.org/10.1353/jjq.2011.0024.
te Hennepe, Mieneke. “‘To Preserve the Skin in Health’: Drainage, Bodily Control and the Visual Definition of Healthy Skin 1835–1900.” Medical History 58, no. 3 (2014): 397–421. https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2014.30.
Baumann, Leslie, Nick J. Levell, Lawrence Charles Parish, and Leonard J. Hoenig. “Erasmus Wilson's Role in Soap Advertisements: Cleansing a Soiled Reputation.” Clinics in Dermatology 39, no. 6 (2021): 1046–1062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clindermatol.2021.01.001.
Vinikas, Vincent. “Lustrum of the Cleanliness Institute, 1927–1932.” Journal of Social History 22, no. 4 (1989): 613–630. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/22.4.613.

Trade cards and chromolithography

Jay, Robert. The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987.
Black, Jennifer M. “Exchange Cards: Advertising, Album Making, and the Commodification of Sentiment in the Gilded Age.” Winterthur Portfolio 51, no. 1 (2017): 1–53. https://doi.org/10.1086/693448.
Marzio, Peter C. The Democratic Art: Pictures for a 19th-Century America: Chromolithography, 1840–1900. Boston: D. R. Godine; Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1979.

Public baths and municipal hygiene

Williams, Marilyn T. Washing “the Great Unwashed”: Public Baths in Urban America, 1840–1920. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991.
Sheard, Sally. “Profit Is a Dirty Word: The Development of Public Baths and Wash-houses in Britain 1847–1915.” Social History of Medicine 13, no. 1 (2000): 63–86. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/13.1.63.

Web sites and archive records

Wellcome Collection. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/wegxe7mq
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. “The first step toward lightening the White man’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://lccn.loc.gov/2002715038
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. “You need only one soap--Ivory soap / the Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://lccn.loc.gov/00650433
Wikimedia Commons (from The Saturday Evening Post). “Ivory Soap...It Floats.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_Beach_Winter_-_Ivory_Soap...It_Floats,_1911.jpg
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections. “This is the way it goes.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/advert/id/455
Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive. “It floats : Ivory Soap, 99 44/100% pure.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://archive.org/details/b33458844
Boston Public Library. “Sapolio.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/7m01bz99s
Boston Public Library. “Clean baths with Sapolio.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/7m01bw88v
Peabody and Stearns (architects). “Public Bath, Dover Street, Boston – Peabody and Stearns.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Public_Bath,_Dover_Street,_Boston_%E2%80%93_Peabody_and_Stearns.jpg
Unknown. “Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colgate_advert_Cashmere_Bouquet_Toilet_Soap_(Six_Months_in_Mexico).png
Dove (Unilever). “Keep Beauty Real.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://www.dove.com/us/en/campaigns/purpose/keep-beauty-real.html
Method (SC Johnson). “Foaming Hand Wash, Violet + Lavender, 10 fl oz.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://methodproducts.com/products/foaming-hand-wash-violet-lavender-10-fl-oz
Aesop. “Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash, 500 mL.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://thailand.aesop.com/en/products/resurrection-aromatique-hand-wash
Dr. Bronner's. “Pure-Castile Liquid Soap, Cherry Blossom Pride limited-edition label.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://info.drbronner.com/media-center/press-release/dr-bronners-remixes-iconic-label-on-limited-edition-cherry-blossom-pride-soap-to-proclaim-pride-joy-solidarity-available-in-june-and-july-2026/
Blueland. “Hand Soap Set.” Accessed July 28, 2026. https://www.blueland.com/products/hand-soap-sets

Rights and ownership

Image Credits

Object 1
Creator / company
A. & F. Pears; lithograph after H. Stacy Marks
Date
approximately 1890
Work title
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Holding institution / owner
Wellcome Collection
Image credit
Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 1
Object 2
Creator / company
A. & F. Pears
Date
1899
Work title
The first step toward lightening the White man’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness
Holding institution / owner
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Image credit
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, digital ID cph.3b32850.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 2
Object 3
Creator / company
Strobridge & Co. Lith.
Date
1898
Work title
You need only one soap--Ivory soap / the Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York.
Holding institution / owner
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Image credit
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, digital ID ppmsca.05944.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 3
Object 4
Creator / company
Alice Beach Winter
Date
January 7, 1911
Work title
Ivory Soap...It Floats
Holding institution / owner
Wikimedia Commons (from The Saturday Evening Post)
Image credit
The Saturday Evening Post, 1911, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 4
Object 5
Creator / company
Procter & Gamble Company
Date
December 26, 1908
Work title
This is the way it goes.
Holding institution / owner
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Image credit
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, ADV0175.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 5
Object 6
Creator / company
Procter & Gamble Company
Date
1900
Work title
It floats : Ivory Soap, 99 44/100% pure
Holding institution / owner
Wellcome Library, via Internet Archive
Image credit
Wellcome Library via Internet Archive. Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 6
Object 7
Creator / company
Maker not recorded
Date
approximately 1870–1900
Work title
Sapolio.
Holding institution / owner
Boston Public Library
Image credit
Boston Public Library, via Digital Commonwealth. No known copyright restrictions.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 7
Object 8
Creator / company
Maker not recorded
Date
approximately 1870–1900
Work title
Clean baths with Sapolio.
Holding institution / owner
Boston Public Library
Image credit
Boston Public Library, via Digital Commonwealth. No known copyright restrictions.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 8
Object 9
Creator / company
Peabody and Stearns (architects)
Date
1908
Work title
Public Bath, Dover Street, Boston – Peabody and Stearns
Image credit
The Brickbuilder, 1908, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 9
Object 10
Creator / company
Unknown
Date
1888
Work title
Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap
Image credit
From Six Months in Mexico, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Rights / use note
public-domain
Image source
View the source image record for object 10
Object 11
Creator / company
Dove (Unilever)
Date
No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.
Work title
Keep Beauty Real
Holding institution / owner
Dove (Unilever)
Image credit
Dove (Unilever). Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.
Rights / use note
educational-use-claimed
Image source
View the source image record for object 11
Object 12
Creator / company
Method (SC Johnson)
Date
No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.
Work title
Foaming Hand Wash, Violet + Lavender, 10 fl oz
Holding institution / owner
Method (SC Johnson)
Image credit
Method (SC Johnson). Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.
Rights / use note
educational-use-claimed
Image source
View the source image record for object 12
Object 13
Creator / company
Aesop
Date
No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.
Work title
Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash, 500 mL
Holding institution / owner
Aesop
Image credit
Aesop. Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.
Rights / use note
educational-use-claimed
Image source
View the source image record for object 13
Object 14
Creator / company
Dr. Bronner's
Date
2026
Work title
Pure-Castile Liquid Soap, Cherry Blossom Pride limited-edition label
Holding institution / owner
Dr. Bronner's
Image credit
Dr. Bronner's. Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.
Rights / use note
educational-use-claimed
Image source
View the source image record for object 14
Object 15
Creator / company
Blueland
Date
No date given. Accessed July 28, 2026.
Work title
Hand Soap Set
Holding institution / owner
Blueland
Image credit
Blueland. Reproduced for non-commercial scholarly criticism and comparison.
Rights / use note
educational-use-claimed
Image source
View the source image record for object 15

The Big Idea

Object 1: Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Object 7: Sapolio.

Object 8: Clean baths with Sapolio.

Object 2: The first step toward lightening the White man’s burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness

Object 3: You need only one soap--Ivory soap / the Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York.

Object 4: Ivory Soap...It Floats

Object 5: This is the way it goes.

Object 6: It floats : Ivory Soap, 99 44/100% pure

Object 9: Public Bath, Dover Street, Boston – Peabody and Stearns

Object 10: Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap

Object 1: Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Object 11: Keep Beauty Real

Object 6: It floats : Ivory Soap, 99 44/100% pure

Object 12: Foaming Hand Wash, Violet + Lavender, 10 fl oz

Object 13: Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash, 500 mL

Object 7: Sapolio.

Object 14: Pure-Castile Liquid Soap, Cherry Blossom Pride limited-edition label

Object 10: Colgate advert, Cashmere Bouquet Toilet Soap

Object 15: Hand Soap Set

Look Again

Bibliography

Object records

Scholarly and contextual sources

Image Credits