Anne McClintock's article, "Soap," she discusses the historic connotations of soap and the methods of advertising according to these connotations. The advertising methods were often racist, promising to cleanse the impure and set soap in a scene of domesticity and femininity. One company with particularly controversial advertising is Pears Soap which, "became intimately associated with a purified nature magically cleaned of polluting industry". Advertisements for soap portrayed it "luminous with its own inner radiance... pulsating magically with spiritual enlightenment and imperial grandeur" and "offered the promise of spiritual salvation and regeneration through commodity consumption". While current advertisers have all but departed from the use of racism in soap ads, the notion that personal hygene products have some sort of magical cleansing power still pertains. Take, for instance, the advertising campaign surrounding Gillette's for Women razors called "Venus" which uses the slogan, "Reveal the goddess in you". This implies by commodity consumption a woman can 'reveal' smooth, shapely legs that are obscured by hair and represent her femininity. She will become instantly more beautiful and attractive. Furthermore the word 'goddess' is connotatively mystical and associated to a woman who is adored for her beauty and class. The campaign plays on images and words which are unrealistic to most women, but promise the status of 'goddess' if one uses the brand.
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