Lux soap and the Americanization of Turkey
With movie stars in Hayat magazine
In case you weren't aware of it, 2024 is the 100th anniversary of the launch of Lux, the world's first mass market beauty soap. Finally, in 1924, women were at last able to get "luxury at an affordable price." They were told about this by many of earth’s most beautiful women.
Starting in the late twenties with starlets from the talkies, Lux recruited hundreds of movie stars. All of them told the world how they owed everything to this smooth-skin-rendering soap. Without it, they said, there's no way they'd be as beautiful or youthful-looking - they'd be ugly old bags. Lonely ones too. Only because of Lux were able to attract handsome men. No worries about being a spinster.
Touted as 'the beauty soap of the film stars' Lux lined up a whole chorus-line of Hollywood's best known beauties to lavish praise on its miracle bars, leveraging their popularity and taking credit for their looks. Celebrity endorsement was born.
Why am I on about this? Leafing through some of the Turkish Hayat ( Life) magazines
we've picked up