Vintage Avon Commercial - Get to know your Avon lady! - 1970s

A further bouquet of Avon products for you!

https://youtu.be/FlzXtDx6tOo?feature=shared 

Do you still use Cologne or after shave?

THE TARHEEL JAMES BOND SPY BATH: THE DOSSIER

One of the stranger things in my old toy picture archive is this plastic Lotus Esprit James Bond 'Spy Bath' from 1977.

I posted it on MC years ago in 2015 and haven't really thought about it since.

Till now.

Looking at the box art the wheels of the car actually turn!

Intriguingly I recall that this was released by one Tarheel. Is that the Tarheel from the US who released American Project SWORD toys? I thought I'd have another look for further pics using the new-fangled Google lens I didn't have back in 2009.

And here's the new googles from 007 collectors online.

Further googling throws up the fact that the bubble bath was released in Australia!

Many sales sites describe this as a kit!

Incredibly I've seen one sold online for £440!

Still no evidence of the Tarheel brand yet, so I went back to source and that very first image. The Worthpoint sale gave up two further pictures.

And there it is .... on the label on the cars undercarraige are the words TARHEEL HOLDINGS.

I had originally thought that the T logo on the left-hand side of the box edge was the Tarheel logo we know from the Tarheel toy company as was in Tarboro, USA, pictured here ....

... but I now think its this old 1970's United Artists logo ....

So, taking all this into account I'm now sure that this Tarheel Holdings of Australia are a completely different firm to the old Tarheel plastics company from Tarboro, USA, who released Project SWORD toys in the US.

So, who are/ were Tarheel Holdings of Australia?

INSERT AND BLAST-OFF

 

Taking us back to the glory days of space toiletries here's the Cavernal enema set. Every home should have one!

For the fast-paced life we all have these days, its quick and easy and simple to clean afterwards.

So empty your space waste with Cavernal today.

This product is endorsed by Billy Bastoff by Held-on.

A CLOSE SHAVE WITH THE PAST

 I saw this in a charity shop for £3 and I could feel the lathery memories soaping up my face as I photographed it!

I must have bought my old Dad at least two of these over the years when I was a kid. They made ideal Dad prezzies at Christmas. I imagine my Mum got them for me to give him maybe on offer at British Home Stores.

Poor Dad. I got Captain Laser and he got a wet shave for Christmas!

The cup, pictured, usually came with a thick shaving brush. Old Spice did one too and the cup is a thing of beauty with the old galleon sailing the foam!

How it seems just yesterday when these cups where in every bathroom!

Did you have in in your house? What else was on your parents' bathroom shelf?

MY TOXIC SLIME

 For my birthday in December I got some Badedas.

Its a lurid green bubble bath gel made from chestnuts and smells of pine forests.

Wonderful stuff!

The bright green colour does call to mind toxic waste though.

As it happens I was discussing the sweet Toxic Waste with a youngster last month. he told me that there was nothing sourer in the world and that it could actually melt your tongue!

It is Hazardously Sour Candy after all! Do you know it?

A possible prop for sci-fi B movies and model dioramas, I'll leave the sweet Waste alone and stick to bathing in my own green Badedas slime!

TEENAGE SMELLS

Never really getting any for Christmas from my folks or family, I've never been big on after shave and cologne. 

In fact it would have been in my late teens when I was most interested in smelling nice socially without the desire to shower regularly. Even back then though, only two scents were in my frequent employ.

Eau Sauvage - or Savage Water was probably the closest I ever got to being fragrant in a sort of blokey way. I used to spray this stuff onto my neck on Friday night's when I went out on the razz and had couple of beers. It had a sort of lemony citrussy smell, which wasn't too bad. My older Sister Rene got me my first bottle.

Of much greater significance was patchouli oil. This was a lifestyle aroma and the lifestyle I had was late 1970's hippy. Patchouli was a dab of Mother Earth and I enjoyed its niff immensely. Dabbing it on was an act of protest in itself and back in those days I was a big protester. 

Not only did I enjoy wearing it but I was enticed by the opposite sex who wore it. Like a long-haired pheromone, patchouli wearers would seek each other out in the crowded bars of late night Lancashire like badgers, attracted by the promise of all-night debates on the meaning of existence and heavy petting on beanbags to a soft soundtrack of Camel and Neil Young. How I miss patchouli.

Much later in life in my forties I did dabble with Brut and Old Spice for work, those stalwarts of the Sixties scent industry, clinging on like dinosaur musk and worn by my own Dad and older brothers when I was in nappies. Splashing them all over, as old 'Enery would say, was like putting vinegar on chips. It felt nostalgic.

I sort of gave up on all of it in my fifties as I was convinced it triggered allergies. I now rely on a decent soap like Dove to give me an acceptable nose during the day. 

Did you get cologne or toiletries for Christmas in your teens readers?

*

For MJ!

The funniest cologne scene ever!

THE MOST UNHYGIENIC COLLECTABLE IN THE WORLD?

With a toilet roll search and rescue mission on the cards within the next few days I am naturally ruminating on the perforated paper.

Someone else ruminating on the roll is this home-made crocheted toilet dolly in pink [does anyone actually collect these?]

Almost Lady Penelope like!

Charmin!

The pink Rolls never looked so good!

If things get really bad and you start to see mysteron circles then collectors could always crack open their SPV box of tissues neatly stored away since 1993!

Have you got plenty of the soft stuff readers?

Are you sitting comfortably?

GET THE ROLLS PARKER!

Elegance Charm and Deadly Danger.

Those three words we shall forever associate with Lady Penelope, the Tracy Organisation's British agent and her pink Rolls.

They would be a great marketing line for that scarce commodity here in lockdown Britain, the humble toilet roll!

So what if the marketing slogan was 'Thick Long and Strong'?

Well this is the slogan for the New Avenger's Femme Fatale's namesake Purdey.

Purdi toilet roll!

Joanna Lumley would be mortified!

OK, OK, I'm isolated!

GLOBAL RECALL

My friend was explaining what the red and white ball is in the Pokemon world. Its a pokeball. I used to see them at car boot sales when I was regular punter. I first thought they were a soap holder of some kind not being au fete with the pocket monsters universe.

Seeing the pokeball again it reminded me of another plastic ball I saw as a nipper, one that was in our family home. The Kiku powder puff by Faberge. It was a yellow plastic ball that came apart to reveal a puff and powder. there may have been a hidden mirror too. Seeing it again brought back a flood of memories of my Mum's and Sisters' dressing tables. I can still see that yellow ball on their piles of Christmas prezzies too, Christmas morning in the late Sixties. Kiku means Chrysanthemum in Japanese. 

Do you recall the Kiku ball readers?

MATEY AND SOAKY: BUBBLE BATH SAILORS

I recently saw a Matey in a Chemists.

Its that plastic bulbous blue bottle of bubble bath that's been around the seven seas since I was a mucky pup!

I remember the sailor Matey from way back when Billy Blastoff's diver shared a bath with me but I can't recall any other. Was there more than the sailor? A soldier? An astronaut?

I think Universal's Monsters made it into the baths of America under the name of Soaky. I would have loved those.

Do you remember Matey or Soaky? Is it a worldwide bubble bath phenomenon?

TEENAGE TOILETRIES OF YESTERYEAR: CRAZY FOAM

Hello Woodsy

Following up on toiletries remembered, here is a photo I took last year. 

Crazy Foam is alive and well!

Terranova47

NYC

TEENAGE TOILETRIES OF YESTERYEAR

Reading through a Millers Guide section on TV related toiletries, I noticed the gorgeously tinned vintage Captain Scarlet Talc by the House of Romney and the window boxed Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet soaps from the early 1990's.

This got me thinking about the toiletries I myself used as a kid. 

I remember Matey bubble bath in the bathroom and a fine bubbley bath it made too. The bottle looked like a Sailor with a white cap.

Avon catalogues were popular in our house and Mum ordered tons of stuff. I know that shipments of Avon glass after shave bottles arrived regularly for my older Brothers. Bottles shaped like Model T Fords and Porsche Carerras for a racey night out in Preston!

I recall having a sneaky palmful of my Dad's Old Spice and Brut resulting in that Home Alone Kevin mirror scream! Boy were those after shaves not meant for young spotty faces!

My first real Cologne was Eau Sauvage, which I sprayed on as a teenager in the hope that members of the opposite sex would swoon at my feet! They didn't but I smelt nice. Sort of lemony!

What toiletries do you remember?