[Ads-l] Ivory Soap

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Sep 3 20:08:33 UTC 2017


> “So Pure It Floats”

I remember the slogan as

“Ivory Soap It Floats”

Friends’ Intelligencer - Volume 52 - Page 324
https://books.google.com/books?id=mCnnAAAAMAAJ
1895 - ‎Read
_Ivory Soap It Floats_ Reject any soap or washing compound that will
cleanse without an expenditure of time and labor. “What is well done is
done soon enough," and Ivory Soap will do the work as quickly as it can be
done with safety.

A quick GBooking doesn’t reveal any examples earlier than 1895, but here is
a hint that, perhaps, the slogan was known earlier:

Onward - Volume 2 - Page 36
https://books.google.com/books?id=YM8pAAAAYAAJ
1895 - ‎Read
Convention ! ! Convention ! I ! this is the word that floats in our heads
all of the time, remember, _like ivory soap it floats_. Convention is
wafted on every breeze. Convention is on every lip.

On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 8:47 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> And lest we forget, P&G’s non-alphanumeric slogan for Ivory Soap:
>
> “So Pure It Floats”
>
> Apparently it’s because the soap is air-whipped.
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Sep 3, 2017, at 7:34 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Dave Feldman <feldman at imponderables.com>
> > To: JJJRLandau at netscape.com
> > Subject: Ivory Soap
> > Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2017 01:02:01 -0400
> >
> > Hi Jim,
> >
> > A friend of mine, who is on the ADS listserv contacted me about the
> age-old
> > Ivory Soap Imponderables, and I attempted to answer directly to the
> > Listserv but my email was rejected.  Might you be willing to post this to
> > the list, just in case the OP is sleepless without the answer?  Thanks!
> >
> > --
> > Dave Feldman
> >
> > ******************************
> >
> > If Ivory Soap is 99.44% pure, what's the rest?
> >>
> >> The answer can be found in David Feldman _Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise_.
> > Unformatunately I do not have a copy available at this time.
> >>
> >> - Jim Landau
> >
> > I seem to have a copy floating around here:
> >
> >        Procter & Gamble, in the late nineteenth century, sold many
> > products made of fats, such as candles and lard oil, as well as soap.
> > Ivory Soap was originally marketed as a laundry soap, but the company was
> > smart enough to realize its product’s potential as a cosmetic soap.  The
> > only problem was that most consumers were buying castile soaps (hard
> soaps
> > made out of olive oil and sodium hydroxide) and considered laundry soap
> > inappropriate for their personal grooming.
> >        In order to convince consumers that its soap was wholesome,
> Procter
> > & Gamble employed an independent scientific consultant in New York City
> to
> > determine exactly what a pure soap was.  The answer:  a pure soap should
> > consist of nothing but fatty acids and alkali; anything else was foreign
> > and superfluous.
> >        Samples of Ivory Soap were sent to the same chemist for analysts.
> > Much to the manufacturer’s surprise, Ivory, by the consultant’s
> definition,
> > was “purer” than the competing castile soaps — containing only 0.56
> percent
> > “impurities.”  The impurities, then and now, were rather innocent:
> >
> >                        Uncombined alkali:  0.11 percent
> >                        Carbonates:  0.28 percent
> >                        Mineral matter: 0.17 percent
> >
> >
> >        The first Ivory advertisement was placed in a religious weekly,
> The
> > Independent, on December 21, 1881.  Procter & Gamble decided to emphasize
> > the positive, and right away hammered at their product’s advantages.
> Ivory
> > Soap was trumpeted as “99 and 44/100 percent pure,” a rare advertising
> > slogan in that it has lasted longer than a century.
> > ***************
> >        I wrote this 30 years go, but I’m guessing the info is still
> > accurate, as this is a rare Imponderables entry that I’ve gotten no
> > complaints about!  Hope this helps.
> >
> > Dave Feldman
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _____________________________________________________________
> > Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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