Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Today's Useless Tidbit


In 1914 Kimberly Clark invented a bandage made of absorbent wadding from processed wood, dubbed Cellucotton. It was sold to the War Department at cost and used to bandage soldiers’ wounds.

After the war, they needed to find a different use for it and eventually stumbled on the idea of sanitary napkins, thus eliminating the need for women to reuse household rags.

Originally named Cellunap, short for Cellucotton napkins, the name was soon changed by Kimberly Clark’s first marketing firm to Kotex, short for cotton textile.

It took a bit for the notion to catch on but by 1945 cloth rags were a thing of the past.

Yes, I’m sure this is something you’ve always wanted to know too.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, B...thank God Kim thought of that! Where do you find this information?
:}

Unknown said...

Cloths rags? How pukeable...as always fascinating bordering on odd

Molly Daniels said...

I'll bet you're a whiz at Trivial Pursuit!

Anny Cook said...

My grandmother told me about using rags... hence the "on the rag" phrase. Interestingly enough, many women are going back to washable, reusable pads because sanitary napkins have become a landfill problem.