"Strong enough for a man, pH balanced for a woman"

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

This may have been discussed before. If so I profoundly apologize but the search engine is not working worth a darn so here goes.

What’s the big deal about “pH balanced” soap?
Followup: Is pH-balanced soap impossible?
These articles address the topic of “pH Balance” but make no distinction about its effect on different genders.

Nearly everyone exposed to US TV sometime in the past 15 or so years has heard this tag line for Secret antiperspirant: “Strong enough for a man, pH balanced for a woman.” Where on earth did they get it? And how does one pH balance for a woman (as opposed to a man)?

I tried a google search and ended up with a lot of sites that refer to the line (and make an awful lot of innuendoes stemming therefrom) but no info on the scientific origin of the line itself.

The Secret website that does provide “Secret to Self Esteem Symposium” and “Secret to Self Esteem” links but nothing on the basis for their history of advertising.

BTW on the site listed above Secret has changed the tagline to “Strong Enough for a Man but Made for a Woman”. Still I assume that the container my wife had lying around this morning was more-or-less current and it has “pH Balanced” printed right on the label.

So what gives?

2

The “made for a woman” version of the slogan was the one in use before the “pH balanced for a woman” version, so maybe they’re just reverting to the old one.

3

You expect scientific facts in a marketing slogan??? What planet did you just arrive from anyway?

4

I’ve always wondered whether Coca-Cola is, in fact, the “Real Thing”. Cecil? :smiley:

Seriously, though, I imagine they got the idea that women need to have deodorant that’s “pH balanced” from the following chain of reasoning:

[ul]
[li]Sweat is slightly acidic.[/li]
http://www.telemedicine.org/Anatomy/anatomy.htm

[li]Acids are dangerous.[/li][li]Women are gentle, frail creatures.[/li][li]Acids would be especially dangerous to gentle, frail creatures.[/li][li]Therefore, women need deodorant that’s “pH balanced” so as to keep those dangerous acids away from their gentle, frail skins.[/li][/ul]

Does this work for anybody else?

And BTW, I’ve always fiercely resented the whole ad campaign, whether it was “Made for a…” or “pH balanced for a…” and I’m frankly astounded that they’ve held onto it all these years. Naming their new deodorant fragrances “Ambition”, “Genuine”, and “Optimism” doesn’t make up for the sheer male “Chauvinism” in the mindset of the ad campaign. :rolleyes:

5

Um, Idaho.

Duck Duck Goose I think you may be right. With a campain that was that “sucessful”–look at some of the sites listed for the google search in the OP to see how far the ad line has saturated our culture (or at least some parts of it :eek: )–you would think that someone would be out there claiming credit.

6

Duck Duck, perhaps you’re just overly sensitive? Is it automatically “sexist” just to acknowledge that men and women are different? Does different necessarily imply better and worse?

“Strong enough for a man…” - men usually stink worse.

“but made for a woman.” - Could mean anything. Do women have more sensitive skin? Do women care more than men about having a harsh abrasive rub against their skin? Does it have a perfume that women would prefer over men? Is it pink instead of yellow or blue or green?

The pH balanced part - that is in the ad line somewhere. That is the question - are women somehow more or less acidic than men?

You think that one’s bad, my personal favorite is Degree anti-persperant - “it’s body heat activated”. This product was first launched during that period when Energizer was making the bunny commercials that start like commercials for other (bogus) products, and then the bunny interrupts. I swear I expected the bunny to march through this commercial. Imagine my surprise - it’s a real product!

7

Of course, “strong enough for a man but made for a woman” is lesbian comic Lea Delaria’s tagline.