See more early tampons: A.C.C. Tamponettes, Fibs, B-ettes, Cashay, Daints, Dale, EZO, fax, Holly-Pax, Lotus, LOX, Moderne Woman, Tampax & many more
SEE the directory of all tampons on this site.
HOMEPAGE
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
HOMEPAGE |
MUM address & What does MUM mean? |
Email the museum |
Privacy on this site |
Who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! |
Art of menstruation (and awesome ancient art of menstruation) |
Artists (non-menstrual) |
Asbestos |
Belts |
Bidets |
Birth control and religion |
Birth control drugs, old |
Birth control douche & sponges |
Founder bio |
Bly, Nellie |
MUM board |
Books: menstruation & menopause (& reviews) |
Cats |
Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |
Contraception and religion |
Contraceptive drugs, old |
Contraceptive douche & sponges |
Costumes |
Menstrual cups |
Cup usage |
Dispensers |
Douches, pain, sprays |
Essay directory |
Examination, gynecological (pelvic) (short history) |
Extraction |
Facts-of-life booklets for girls |
Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads |
FAQ |
Feminine napkin, towel, pad directory |
Founder/director biography |
Gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux |
Humor |
Huts |
Links |
Masturbation |
Media coverage of MUM |
Menarche booklets for girls and parents |
Miscellaneous |
Museum future |
Norwegian menstruation exhibit |
Odor |
Olor |
Pad, towel, napkin directory |
Patent medicine |
Poetry directory |
Products, some current |
Puberty booklets for girls and parents|
Religion |
Religión y menstruación |
Your remedies for menstrual discomfort |
Menstrual products safety |
Sanitary napkin, towel, pad directory |
Seguridad de productos para la menstruación |
Science |
Shame |
Slapping, menstrual |
Sponges |
Synchrony |
Tampon directory |
Early tampons |
Teen ads directory |
Tour of the former museum (video) |
Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory |
Underpants & panties directory |
Videos, films directory |
Words and expressions about menstruation |
Would you stop menstruating if you could? |
What did women do about menstruation in the past? |
Washable pads |
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.

Sta-Pacs menstrual tampons
(1930s? Sta-Pacs or Stapacs Company, U.S.A.)

Sta-Pacs - which might be based on the word Tampax, just as my invented tampon was and Slim-pax probably was - shared a similarity with Tampax: Tampax's patented applicator. You read "New Type Applicator" on its box, below, which might put its age close to the Tampax invention in the early 1930s; maybe the company was trading on the hunch that women had not yet seen the Tampax applicator. But these two similarities seems to make it a Tampax imitation.

Procter & Gamble kindly donated the box and contents as part of a gift of scores of menstrual products.


Below: The beat-up box arrived opened with several tampons missing. It measures 5.24 x 4 x 1.5" (13.3 x 10 x 3.5 cm).
Spelling Sta-Pacs two different ways seems amateurish and might indicate that this was a test box
before the final product appeared. But maybe it's just sloppiness. Or something else.
Calling them "sanitary" tampons seems the same use as in sanitary napkin, which always indicates
a menstrual product in America.
 
 
Below: "Improved TAMPON" means the buyer was familiar with the word tampon; early tampon boxes & instructions often said something like "internal sanitary napkin" even though tampons had been around for thousands of years but had been mostly used for inserting medicine into body cavities (like the vagina; more here, here, and a medical joke.)
But the BOMBSHELL is "New Type Applicator." The applicator (next page) sure looks like the patent-protected Tampax applicator that made Tampax's fortune. I wonder if Tampax lawyers caught up with these people. (See recent copy-cat Tampax: Tampex and TamPak.)
The ends and sides are identical.
 
 

NEXT: the tampon - the instructional leaflet
All tampons on this site - A.C.C. Tamponettes, Fibs, B-ettes, Cashay, Daints, Dale, EZO, fax,
Holly-Pax, Lotus, LOX, Moderne Woman, Tampax & many more

© 2008 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any of the work on this Web site
in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected
violations to [email protected]\