Lysol is a well-known cleaning and disinfection solution used in many homes throughout the world, but did you realize what it was created for? Reckitt Benckiser owns the home-cleaning brand, which is extensively distributed and used in the United States. Lysol is a popular choice for many families in the United Kingdom and Europe, with manufacturers located all around the world. However, according to previous adverts, the cleaning brand was formerly advertised for a very other reason.
You may be knee-deep in Lysol wipes and sprays, but did you know that Lysol wasn’t initially known as a household cleaner? According to old adverts from the early to mid-20th century, Lysol producer Lehn & Fink formerly promoted their antiseptic disinfectant as a vaginal douche. To give you a little background, Lysol brand antiseptic disinfectant originally hit the market in 1889 as a strategy to help Germany combat a cholera outbreak. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, advertisements claimed it was an efficient way to combat the infection. Lysol disinfection liquid was available in pharmacy shops and hospitals twelve years later, and the business produced an aerosol spray version in 1962.
Lysol hygiene
Lysol as a feminine hygiene product first appeared in women’s periodicals in the 1920s, advising housewives to bathe their genitals with disinfecting liquid. “A guy marries a lady for the sake of love. So, rather than blaming him if wedded love fades, she should evaluate herself,” said one advertisement. “Is she actually attempting to keep her husband and herself as eager, happy married lovers as possible?” Complete feminine hygiene, as offered by vaginal douches with a scientifically precise preparation like ‘Lysol,’ is one of the most efficient ways to protect her delicate feminine allure.” Clearly, Lysol’s commercials propagated the outdated and harmful belief that a husband’s adultery or discontent with his marriage can only be attributed to his wife’s flaws, such as her odors or fertility.
“Sue was outraged at Tom for the manner he’d been treating her,” says another ad. But it was she who was to blame! She should’ve known better because she wasn’t unfamiliar with feminine hygiene. It was only that she had been careless!” However, it appears that this demand for douching was also coded for something else: birth control. Andrea Tone argues in her 2001 book Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America that feminine hygiene was a euphemism for contraception.
According to Tone, the early Lysol advertising had negative references to scents or germs, which related to sperm. Preventing pregnancy means keeping your body “germ-free” or preserving your “dainty feminine appeal.” Tone’s results are consistent with American contraceptive history. Birth control measures like condoms and diaphragms were expensive and difficult to get in the early twentieth century. This is owing, at least in part, to the 1873 Comstock Act, which designated contraceptive devices and information as “obscene” and outlawed their dissemination across state lines or through the mail. Following that, twenty-four states passed legislation restricting access to and information on birth control.
Manufacturers advertised their contraceptive solutions as “feminine hygiene” goods since these restrictions essentially prohibited the sale and advertising of birth control. Postcoital douching has become a common form of contraception. From 1940 until the FDA approved the oral contraceptive pill in 1960, douching was the most frequent method of pregnancy control. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, Lysol was the most popular “feminine hygiene” product in the United States. You have the proper instinct if the thought of washing your lady bits with Lysol makes you shudder.
Lysol’s soap solution used to include cresol, which Tone characterized as “a component of crude carbolic acid, a distillate of coal and wood” that might cause severe burning, inflammation, and even death in large doses. Doctors have documented hundreds of Lysol-related fatalities by 1911, including five deaths caused by “uterine irrigation.”
Lysol’s usage as a feminine hygiene product resulted in numerous complaints and even litigation against Lehn & Fink. In a 1935 lawsuit brought by a lady who was burned by Lysol douching, the business defended itself by claiming the burns were caused by “an allergy to Lysol.”
A guy complained to Lehn & Fink in 1961 after a Lysol douche blistered and bled his wife’s vagina. This study was “the first of its sort on record,” according to the company’s vice president. Lehn & Fink also lied brazenly in the substance of their feminine hygiene advertisements, many of which included endorsements and testimonials from “eminent” physicians. The American Medical Association conducted an inquiry and discovered that these “experts” did not exist. Lysol was also ineffective as a contraceptive. Tone cites a 1933 research conducted at Newark’s maternal health clinic, which indicated that over half of the 507 women who took Lysol for birth control became pregnant.
The “pill” swept the American contraceptive market in the 1960s and 1970s, and two significant Supreme Court rulings enhanced birth control available in the United States.
Lysol launched its entry into bathroom cleaning with the debut of its toilet bowl cleanser in 1968 after Sterling Drug purchased Lehn & Fink in 1967. Reckitt Benckiser now owns the brand, which has remained focused on household cleaning. Reckitt Benckiser marketing director Rory Tait responded to HuffPost’s inquiries concerning Lysol’s former usage as a vaginal douching and contraceptive product with the following statement:
“Lysol has been committed to safeguarding families against the devastating effects of germs for more than a century, from cholera at the turn of the twentieth century to the flu virus today.” Lysol, like many other consumer home goods, evolved throughout the previous century as an understanding of health and personal care grew. Lysol has developed from a personal care and surface care brand to largely a surface care brand, with Lysol cleaners, disinfectants, and hand soaps found in homes, schools, and workplaces all over the world.” Tait also advised users to carefully study Lysol product labels to understand the products’ intended usage.
How is Lysol used now?
The majority of Lysol’s products are only intended for use on surfaces. Wipes, sprays, and multi-surface cleaners are among the products available from the company.
Hand sanitisers and hand soaps have also been produced by the business, which destroys 99.9% of germs on hands.
