See the 1970s P&G tampon Trust and the later notorious Rely. See the other tampons Procter & Gamble sold around the time of Rely.
Read also the important following articles (issues listed) in the Rochester (New York) Patriot newspaper, which investigated Rely in 1975 and 1976, years before the toxic shock crisis: 23 July-5 August 1975 (front cover) - 6-26 August 1975 - 11 December 1975-13 January 1976 - 1-14 September 1976) - a letter to a customer assuring her that Rely was safe (April 1980) - and a letter from Procter & Gamble (22 September 1980) announcing that it was stopping distribution of Rely because of health concerns
See also the product safety page on this site, and you must read the definitive government site dealing with menstrual products safety: the Food and Drug Administration's at http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/ocd/tamponsabs.html See the super Rely tampon, two sections of its instructions, and an ad for Rely from 1980 And see some other tampons Procter & Gamble sold around the time of Rely and also early commercial tampons
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Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site.
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.

Soft Shape menstrual tampon
(Procter & Gamble, 1968, U.S.A.)
Satan worship, said Fundamentalist groups

Procter & Gamble produced several tampons before its big mistake, Rely, which stopped it in its tracks until the company bought Tampax in 1997. Soft Shape was one of those pre-Rely tampons.

Nothing on or in the box explains the name of this tampon. The plastic applicator is fairly rigid and the cotton plug is, well, cotton.

The box bears the infamous logo (below) that caused certain Christian groups to claim that P&G was in league with the devil and would contribute a percentage of its profits to the Church of Satan. As far as I know the tampon itself was innocent.

Here's what a proponent of this story has to say (I added the emphasis in red):

". . . Procter's relationship to the devil dates back decades. During the 1960's, Christians who looked closely at the corporate logo, a moon-star symbol that had appeared on many of the company's products since 1882 [see it below], saw not 13 stars representing the 13 original colonies as the company insisted, but something altogether different: the Mark of the Beast. The arrangement of stars, noted these witnesses, secretly spelled out the numbers '666,' immediately recognizable to students of the Bible as the digits of the devil.

"While Procter dropped its satanic logo in 1985, there's no word yet on what logo the merged companies will use, and whether the new image will incorporate the mark of the beast. Analysts note that in recent years, Procter has worked to update what has long been a staid image, and is thus unlikely to reuse the satanic logo from its past." [From http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2005/02/christian_group.html
February 01, 2005, "Christian Groups Move to Block Procter & Gamble Merger"]

As you might imagine, there was more to the story. A Time magazine story ("Procter & Gamble Fights Back") from 19 July 1982 stated,

"One day around the year 1851, a Cincinnati wharf hand painted black crosses on boxes of Procter & Gamble candles so that illiterate workers could distinguish them. In time the cross became a star. Then a dozen more stars were added to signify the original 13 colonies, as well as a quarter moon with a human face, a popular image of the time. By 1882 the unusual logo had become Procter & Gamble's trademark. . . .

"Lately, however, it has become a major corporate problem because of a virulent whispering campaign alleging that the logo is satanic and that Procter & Gamble is somehow involved in the worship of the devil. The talk first surfaced in January 1980, and reappeared two years later when the firm began getting thousands of phone calls about stories that company officials had confessed on the Phil Donahue and Merv Griffin television shows that Procter & Gamble and its top executives were supporting devil worship. There were never any such programs." [From http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953563,00.html ]

Read much more at the links. It's a fascinating piece of Americana that, um, resonates today.

Below: The cardboard box measures 3 x 5.5 x 1 1/4" (8 x 14.3 x 3 cm). Both sides have the same colors but I wasn't able to make them match. The color of the side below is truer than the one at right.
Below: Other side of the box. The ARROWS point to features enlarged below.
   

Below: See the LARGE ARROW, above right. Somebody at the former Tambrands, which made Tampax, wrote on the box, which I take to mean received [at Tambrands] 28 August 1969.
 
Below: See the SMALL ARROW, right-hand box. This is the logo many American Fundamentalist Christian groups said represented P&G's connection to devil worship. Read some explanation above. Can you see 666 in the stars? I can't.
 

Below: The small sides are blank.
Below: The ends are identical except for the 2/49 below - two boxes for 49 cents? But that seems too low.
 

NEXT: Tampons & instructions
See the 1970s P&G tampon Trust and the later notorious Rely. See the other tampons Procter & Gamble
sold around the time of Rely.
All tampons, pads, belts, bidets, miscellaneous, puberty booklets, art, underpants, teen ads
MORE in column at left.

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