Groovy Ads That Sold Woolworths’ UK Line of Baby Doll Cosmetics

Here are several examples of the many groovy psychedelic adverts produced in the 1960s to promote Woolworths’ UK line of “Baby Doll” cosmetics in the late 1960s. These “pop-style” adverts appeared in the country’s magazines for teenagers, like Jackie, RAVE, Flair, Queen and Photoplay.

 

 

Baby Doll was made by E.R. Holloway at its factory Lavenham, Suffolk, England. Opening in the mid-1950, theE.R. Holloway’s made a rang of toiletries and cosmetics for Woolworths – the brands Evette and the new Baby Doll and Tu ranges for the burgeoning post-war teenage market – and Marks and Spencers. The Baby Doll range launched in 1967, followed by Tu in the 1970s.

 

To help launch the product, Woolworth featured Baby Doll in its staff magazine of June 1967. This was the look for teenage “mod” girls. Lipsticks were “as pale as pale can be”.

 

 

Thank to the Make Up Museum we know that these ads were created by Caroline Smith, a fashion artist who illustrated many magazines and was associated with cosmetic houses producing their packaging designs.

On Caroline’s website, we learn that her work is a “link to the earliest roots of artistic expression. The symbols and images that inhabit her vibrant and powerful paintings carry the same message as the earliest cave painting, Greek vase, or Egyptian temple wall.

“The anonymous artists, sculptors, painters of the caves of Lascaux, the Temples of Luxor and Machu Pichu, the thousands of artisans who were taught and passed on in turn the symbols and sigils of their ancestors – these are her source. Each sign had its meaning, each colour its power. This is the language of artists throughout time and is true inspiration.”

As she says: “As a child, the written word meant less to me than the mysterious visual signs, symbols and rituals of adult society. They held unbelievable power, promising the magical key to understanding the strange world around me.”

 

 

 

By way of a bonus, here’s the radio ad: