Friday, February 24, 2012

Spel Washes Everything

CWS Spel washing powder
Spel was a detergent powder that was sold in Co-operative stores across the UK in the 1950's & 1960's. Essentially the C.W.S. own brand but instead of calling the product after the name of the factory - Pelaw Shoe Polish, Crumpsall Cream Crackers, Luton Cocoa they chose a snappier name. In fact just like the other short names as used by the big players Proctor and Gamble or Unilver. Such classics as Daz, Omo, Surf, Tide, Persil. Up until the 1950's soap and soap flakes had been the product of choice to wash and clean though detergents had been around for a long time - Oxydol 1914, and Persil 1907 a name derived from two of its original ingredients, perborate and silicate.

The artwork for the advert is a take on a popular televison series from the USA called Bewitched that was made from 1964 thru 1972, the early seasons were in black and white. It starred Elizabeth Montgomery who played a character with magical powers just by wiggling her nose. The magic was always played for laughs. There was no dark menacing stuff in these programs.

So you could now magic that dirt away with this wonderful product, that is you could clean with very little effort. Click the picture to get a bigger view and discover some other CWS adverts from this era.

Links : Bewitched at IMDB

2 comments:

felix said...

The East German product was called Spee

lorenzo23 said...

Love those DDR Museum pictures you've got there

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