People have been experiencing periods since the beginning of time, but tampons weren’t commercially available until the 1930s. Kotex as a brand began by selling sanitary napkins. Take a look at Kotex’s first tampons brand Fibs, from 1935. Kotex, owned by Kimberly-Clark, remains a leading period product brand today.
Fibs Tampons – Sold by Kotex
- Measurements: 2.25″ long (tampon) 4″ long with string
- Materials: Cotton, paper box, plastic cellophane wrap
- Timeframe: First advertisements appeared in 1935 and ran through 1959
- Inventor(s): Kotex
- Item Location: Period Nirvana in Asheville NC
- Credit: Kim Rosas
- Category: Tampon, Non-Applicator Tampon, Kotex, Kimberly-Clark, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s
Item Description: Original box of Fibs by Kotex, from approximately 1940. The box is two shades of blue and has worn corners, yellowing, and fairly significant wear and tear. Front reads “One Dozen Fibs Tampons A Kotex Product” with a medical cross emblem. Back of box reads the same. Back of box is open at the perforations revealing one unraveling, open Fibs tampon and 11 intact and individually cellophane-wrapped Fibs tampons. Each Fib tampon is 2.25″ long, has a rounded tip, the cotton is “quilted” with visible stitching to that effect, and is wrapped in a 4″ long string and then individually wrapped in cellophane that has some yellowing.
About Fibs Tampons by Kotex
Fibs Tampons were the first tampons made by Kotex, sold beginning in 1935 up to the late 1950s. These tampons were “quilted” with a string attached around the compressed cotton that is then pushed through the tampon for extra security. According to the book “Shared Values: A History of Kimberly-Clark” by Robert Spector (1997) Fibs Tampons were too big and bulky, and did not sell well causing its eventual failure.1
The Fibs advertising strategy included ads with verbiage such as “because of the rounded top, no artificial method of insertion is necessary” 2 A box of Fibs was priced at .25 for a dozen tampons.
A 12 count box of Fibs sold for .25, making each tampon .02 cents each.
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Tampax owned the first patent for tampon applicators, so Fibs were digital non-applicator style. The brand Kotex would eventually sell tube-in-tube applicators but not before trying other alternatives. Kotex brought many more tampons to the market after Fibs including various tampon applicator innovations such as their Stick Tampon, Curved Applicator Tampon, and the later U by Kotex Click Compact Tampon.
Also in the Collection by Kotex:
Kotex Stick Tampons
Kotex Products in other collections:
Smithsonian, University Madison-Wisconsin,
Sources:
- MUM.org http://www.mum.org/FibPon.htm ↩︎
- Duke University Library https://repository.duke.edu/dc/adaccess/BH0075 ↩︎
