Follies of the Mad Men #66

[From Look magazine for July 22 1958. Two scans, top and bottom.]

Sure, you've all heard of one of the most infamous Madison Avenue displays of ignorance ever, the "flesh-colored Band-aid." But how many of us have actually seen the offending ad?

Here is one instance from many in that racist campaign.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Comments

These are not the "flesh-tone" Band-Aids we all love to make fun of. Those were solid colored, and colored a color that neither "white" nor "colored" people were. The product here was a clear plastic with a pattern printed on them that did partially camouflage them against the Caucasian skin of a majority of the target market. They certainly didn't stand out like the sore thumbs covered by the other Band-Aids of their day, at least not on my thumbs.

Posted by stpatme on 05/05/09 at 04:35 AM

Cool! I have that box of Band Aids in my bathroom!

Posted by StanFlouride on 05/26/09 at 04:54 AM

Wow. Talk about PC gone mad. They were skin colored! Not everybody's skin, granted, but just because they're not everybodies skin color, doesn't mean they're nobody's!

Posted by Joe on 01/26/12 at 08:31 PM

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