Dishpan hands, class anxiety and the performance of femininity: marketing Maniol hand cream in early 20th-century Sweden Open Access

In the 1920s, a curious and seemingly “new” condition emerged that was seen as threatening the female population: dishpan hands. Thought up by the growing beauty industry, the term described hands that became red, itchy and flaky as a result of repeated exposure to cleaning agents during domestic chores (Neuhaus, 2011). Although medical research has since confirmed that repeated exposure to cleaning products can indeed lead to eczema and dermatitis (Loh and Yew, 2022), beauty brands rarely framed the issue in clinical terms. Instead, they foregrounded aesthetics and social desirability, warning that dishpan hands could erode a woman’s beauty, undermine her femininity and even jeopardise her romantic prospects.

Advertising campaigns took a scaremongering tone that often bordered on the absurd. In the UK, Lux soap declared that “romance dies” at the touch of dishpan hands, describing them as deeply “humiliating” to husbands. Likewise, Ivory soap in the USA claimed that dishpan hands could age a woman by at least five years and make her children scream upon contact ^[1]. In Sweden, however, the campaign led by Maniol – a hand cream produced by Henrik Gahns AB – responded in a distinctively local way, reflecting profound shifts in the country’s social fabric. During the 1920s and 1930s, as the middle class expanded, many households no longer employed domestic servants, meaning that women – traditionally the mistresses of the house – were now responsible for performing domestic labour themselves (Edvinsson and Söderberg, 2010). At the same time, more young women entered outward-facing professions, while social democratic ideals emphasising bodily discipline influenced cultural understandings of responsible citizenship (Broström, 2019; O’Hagan, 2022a). These ideals were also entwined with contemporary racial biology discourses, in which “Nordic whiteness” – and the smooth, pale skin associated with it – was framed as both a biological and civic marker of respectability (Idevall Hagren, 2021). Maniol’s advertising, thus, shifted from simply protecting hands from harsh winter weather to addressing the visible signs of domestic and manual labour – signs that clashed with ideals of white middle-class femininity, professionalism and bodily dignity.

This paper uses multimodal critical discourse analysis (Machin and Mayr, 2013; Ledin and Machin, 2018, 2020) to examine how Maniol’s marketing practices adapted to this shifting social terrain. Specifically, it analyses the interplay of linguistic, visual and other semiotic resources in Maniol’s print advertisements from 1920 to 1940 and identifies three core themes:

1. the burden of respectable domesticity;

2. the performance of professional femininity; and

3. hands as a marker of feminine attractiveness.

The analysis shows how, underpinned by Sweden’s unique sociocultural conditions, these advertisements constructed both domestic labour and professional life as threats to femininity – threats that could be concealed or corrected through consumption. Maniol’s marketing also underscored the social risks of neglecting one’s hands in terms of female civic responsibilities as workers, mothers and wives, arguing that true femininity required hands untouched by visible labour. In doing so, the brand articulated broader anxieties around gender performance, class mobility and the visibility of domestic work in a society undergoing profound transformations in labour, gender roles and social expectations. At the same time, these discourses reinforced whiteness as the normative standard of beauty, positioning racialised bodies as outside the conventional boundaries of modern femininity.

While a considerable body of scholarship has addressed the rise of the commercial beauty industry and its shaping of feminine norms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g. Wolf, 1990; Peiss, 1998; Jones, 2010; Downing, 2012), research on these developments in the Swedish context has only more recently gained sustained scholarly attention. Early foundational contributions came from Söderberg (2001) and Qvarsell and Torell (2004), whose work laid important groundwork for more recent studies by Arnberg (2018), Severinsson (2018), and Runefelt (2019a, 2019b) that situate Swedish beauty culture within wider transnational and socioeconomic frameworks. However, many areas remain underexplored, not least the ways in which advertising discourses constructed specific gendered, class and racialised anxieties around domestic labour, bodily appearance and the performance of modern womanhood in Sweden’s rapidly changing social landscape. This is in line with Bengtsson’s (2019) and Idevall Hagren’s (2021) beliefs that the prevailing “national myth” of Swedish egalitarianism is so strong that scholars have largely ignored class and race dynamics or any evidence that challenges this narrative.

Furthermore, in spite of the pervasiveness of dishpan hands as a recurring motif in beauty advertising – both in Sweden and internationally – it has received little to no focused academic attention. The present article addresses this oversight by examining how the discourse surrounding dishpan hands operated not merely as a marketing strategy but as a culturally embedded narrative shaped by intersecting anxieties around gender, class and the aesthetic management of the body. By foregrounding the cultural and symbolic significance of women’s hands in early 20th-century Swedish marketing, the study contributes to ongoing discussions of how beauty advertising has historically functioned as a site for the regulation and performance of femininity within shifting socioeconomic contexts. More broadly, it shows how national variations in advertising – shaped by local political ideals, racial discourses and domestic labour practices – can illuminate wider patterns in global beauty culture, offering comparative insights for scholars studying similar motifs and anxieties in other countries.

Throughout history, women have often faced pressure to maintain their appearance, but as commercial beauty culture developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this pressure evolved into new, more market-driven forms (Peiss, 1998). In Sweden, these developments unfolded within the context of a rapid and dramatic transformation from a largely agrarian society to an industrialised and urban one – a change that came later than in many other European countries and North America (Schön, 2012). This sudden shift shaped the ways in which Swedish women encountered modern ideals of femininity and beauty, particularly in the growing consumer markets of the cities where young women sought new opportunities and identities (Hermansson, 2002). By the 1890s, beauty salons began to emerge across Swedish towns and cities, offering treatments aimed at improving appearance and hygiene, which reshaped norms around bodily care (Nordlund Edvinsson, 2025). At the same time, department stores and pharmacies increasingly stocked branded soaps, perfumes and related products, signalling the growing commercialisation and accessibility of personal care in the country (Husz, 2004).

Parallel to these shifts was the expansion of cheap printing technologies, which ushered in a “golden age” for the Swedish press (Runefelt, 2024). Circulation soared from 100,000 in 1870 to one million by 1890, and by 1900, Stockholm alone boasted 11 daily newspapers (Runefelt and O’Hagan, 2024). With intense competition for readership, editors recognised the importance of catering to women, both as readers and as consumers (Gustafsson and Rydén, 2001). Women’s magazines and family papers flourished, offering advice on self-care, child-rearing and domestic management. Titles such as Tidskrift för hemmet, Kvinnornas tidning, Husmodern, Svensk Damtidning, Idun and Hertha helped establish the weekly press as a key site for negotiating gender roles and identity (Severinsson, 2018).

According to Söderberg (2001), early 19th-century Sweden promoted ideals of feminine purity and modesty, which led to cosmetics being viewed with scepticism and often seen as vain practices. However, the popular press played a significant role in shifting these attitudes, as the older concept of a stable, essential female identity gave way to a more fluid and performative understanding of selfhood, shaped increasingly by appearance and personal choice (ibid). Yet, this shift also brought heightened pressure on women to maintain their appearance, framing it almost as a personal responsibility to protect their femininity (Runefelt, 2019a). Advice columns began encouraging women to cultivate their looks as part of their domestic duties not only to uphold social respectability but also to prepare for marriage and family life (O’Hagan, 2024a). These beauty expectations appeared alongside guidance on “scientific household management” and “functional kitchens”, while terms such as “the wise housewife” and “the rational housewife” reinforced women’s domestic roles (ibid). Similar dynamics have been observed internationally: Peiss (1998) found that early 20th-century beauty advice in the USA positioned grooming as a moral obligation, while Clark (2020) has shown how beauty salons in Edwardian London gained legitimacy by promising moral uplift alongside physical transformation. By the 1910s, this notion had expanded further, with beauty increasingly connected to individual health (Söderberg, 2001; Runefelt, 2019a). Looking good became conceptualised not only as a personal ideal but also as a democratic and social responsibility, encouraging women to care for themselves for both their own benefit and the good of the nation (O’Hagan, 2022a).

In an ever-competitive market, attracting advertisers was essential to a newspaper’s survival. Recognising women as gatekeepers of the household economy, beauty advertising became an increasingly dominant feature of the Swedish weekly press (Runefelt, 2019a). Cosmetics and make-up came to embody what Hedman (2021) terms “commercial femininity”, where consumer products were tightly bound to ideals of womanhood. Indeed, the earliest Swedish advertising manual, Modern Annonsering (1908) by Henning Appelgren, had already emphasised the importance of the female consumer, characterising her as impulsive and emotional in purchasing decisions. Husz’s (2004) study of Swedish department store Nordiska Kompaniet similarly highlights this portrayal of women consumers as irrational and unable to resist temptation. Similar constructions have been documented by Marchand (1985) in the US context.

As cosmetics and make-up use became more widespread, their visibility in advertising intensified. Hermansson (2002) notes that urban, unmarried women were especially targeted, eager to embrace modern ideals, possessing disposable income and keen to navigate new urban lifestyles. Yet as Hedman (2021) points out, domestic architecture also most likely played a role in shaping beauty practices. The modern bathroom – newly incorporated into urban housing – offered women a private space for self-reflection and grooming, away from traditional observers. Langhamer (2005) makes a similar argument in a UK context, contending that new forms of privacy within working-class homes, particularly for young women, enabled beauty practices to flourish, even in families where overt self-beautification was frowned upon.

Changes in advertising styles and formats were also contributing factors in the growth of cosmetic use. Runefelt (2019b) observes that, while newspaper advertisements in the 1870s were largely text-based, by the 1910s, they had become increasingly visual, emotional and aspirational, with both the front and back pages devoted to them in major dailies. Advertisers used fear and hope in equal measure, selling products as pathways to social mobility, desirability and happiness (Loeb, 1994). Arnberg (2018) identifies the figure of Fru Kund (Mrs Consumer) as a core rhetorical device in Swedish interwar marketing: a moral, nurturing persona combining traditional domestic responsibility with the emerging ideal of rational consumption. This represented a strategic shift from earlier portrayals of women as impulsive and irrational buyers (cf. Husz and Lagerkvist, 2001). Aléx (1994), in fact, traces how the meaning of rationality evolved in Swedish marketing: from emphasising practicality and aesthetic discipline before 1920 to a post-1920 focus on efficiency and technology as defining traits of the modern woman. In this context, cosmetics and make-up were repositioned as thoughtful and purposeful investments, shedding earlier associations with frivolity and emotional impulsiveness (cf. Peiss, 1998).

These transformations coincided with broader legal and social changes in Swedish society. The late 1910s witnessed a marked decline in domestic service alongside a rise in the number of women entering paid employment outside the home (Broström, 2019). In 1921, Swedish women obtained the right to vote, while married women acquired legal control over their own finances. By the late 1930s, legislation was introduced to prevent employment discrimination based on marriage or pregnancy (Frangeur and Niskanen, 2012). Cosmetics and make-up marketing campaigns adapted accordingly, with advertisements increasingly invoking the image of the independent, self-sufficient woman, yet always tempered by an imperative to remain attractive, composed and domestic (Runefelt, 2019a). At the same time, there was a subtle racialised dimension: advertisements often emphasised pale, soft, unmarked skin, reflecting contemporaneous racial biology ideas that associated whiteness with purity, desirability and social respectability. In 1922, Sweden had established the State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala, under the leadership of Herman Lundborg, to study eugenics and human genetics. Although conceived to “provide medical solutions to social problems” associated with industrialism and urbanisation, it focused predominantly on “Nordic” racial traits in the Swedish population and the alleged risks of “race-mixing” with Finns and the Sámi (Ericsson, 2021).

Qvarsell and Torell (2004) demonstrate how cosmetics and make-up became tools of empowerment. However, women were encouraged to use them subtly, presenting self-care as a natural, quasi-invisible labour that aligned not only with ideals of modern femininity but also with racialised standards of beauty. Peiss (1998) has equally highlighted the paradox of personal empowerment through beauty: a form of agency always underwritten by the duty to serve as a wife, mother and model citizen. Even during wartime (although Sweden remained neutral), Arnberg and Hagström (2024) show that ideals of commercial femininity endured, with women’s beauty practices folded into national rhetoric around resilience and morale. The same was true in the UK, where Bovril advertisements positioned female domesticity and care work as vital to the war effort (Loxham, 2016).

Ultimately, as Runefelt (2019a) argues, Swedish advertising helped shape a modern female ideal that appeared more liberated but remained firmly tied to long-standing gender and racial hierarchies. Women’s bodies were fragmented into zones of work – skin, hair, figure and hands – and subjected to continuous routines of self-surveillance and improvement (cf. McRobbie, 1991). In this framework, beauty practices also functioned as a means of aligning with broader societal norms, reflecting expectations of discipline, civic propriety and racialised modernity. Beauty work demanded constant effort yet was often invisible, presented as a “natural” part of women’s daily routines. In this sense, even modern commercial femininity was not a break with the past but rather a reconfiguration of older power structures, as will be further illustrated through this Maniol study.

The data for this study consists of 100 Maniol advertisements published in Svenska Dagbladet between 1920 and 1940. Founded in 1884, Svenska Dagbladet is a Stockholm-based daily newspaper that covers national and international news, while providing local coverage of the Greater Stockholm region. Initially established as a right-wing publication, the paper has promoted liberal-conservative views, particularly in relation to the market economy, since adopting an “unbound moderate” stance in 1977 (O’Hagan, 2023a). From the 1920s to 1940s – the period of interest for this study – Svenska Dagbladet catered primarily to a middle-class readership, although it also reached segments of the skilled working classes.

While daily newspapers were read by both men and women, as Runefelt (2019a) has shown, the advertisements themselves were predominantly aimed at women, with larger images and visual appeal, whereas advertisements targeting men were comparatively sparse and textual. Such advertising helped consolidate the idea of consumption as a female practice, so that even goods not inherently gendered – such as coffee or pianos – were framed as part of women’s domain (ibid, 68–69). Women who read daily newspapers were often more urban, literate and engaged with current events, suggesting that advertisements appearing in this context did more than reinforce domestic ideals within a closed female sphere: they addressed women as active participants in public, civic and consumer life (Ingemarsdotter, 2018). In contrast, women’s newspapers and magazines tended to target a narrower, more homogeneous audience and retained a strong focus on domesticity, offering content and advertisements related to home management, child-rearing and personal grooming even amidst social changes. Examining Maniol advertisements within the broader context of a daily newspaper, rather than a women’s magazine, therefore, provides a distinctive perspective, highlighting how beauty marketing intersected with public visibility and civic participation – issues often overlooked in studies focused solely on women’s periodicals.

The decision to focus on a single newspaper, rather than multiple publications, is informed by the distinctive structure of Sweden’s advertising industry during this period. Unlike most other Western countries, Sweden’s advertising market operated under a cartel agreement between the Association of Swedish Advertising Agencies and the Association of Swedish Newspaper Publishers (Åström Rudberg, 2019). Under this system, only authorised advertising agencies were permitted to create and place advertisements. These agencies worked on commission – typically 15%–25% – and continued to earn a percentage on all advertising space they placed, even after the creative work had been completed. As a result, agencies frequently recycled the same advertisements across multiple newspapers to maximise returns (O’Hagan, 2022a). This led to a high degree of standardisation in content and style, with individual advertisements often running for several months at a time across both national and local publications. Given this uniformity, a single publication such as Svenska Dagbladet provides a robust and representative source for examining Maniol advertising.

All unique Maniol advertisements published between 1920 and 1940 were collected for this study, with only the first instance of each included in the data set. The timeframe of 1920–1940 was deliberately chosen because of its significance as a period of major social transformation in Sweden, particularly regarding women. Key developments during this era include women’s suffrage in 1921, the decline of domestic service and increasing female participation in the white-collar workforce (Ingemarsdotter, 2018). These societal shifts redefined women’s social visibility and domestic responsibilities, creating new cultural anxieties and opportunities for consumer marketing. This period was also marked by the influence of racial biology, in which the ideal of “Nordic whiteness” functioned as a standard of beauty and social respectability. In response to these broader social changes and dynamics, this period also witnessed a marked shift in Maniol’s advertising strategy – from focusing primarily on protection against harsh winter weather to emphasising the threat of “dishpan hands”. Thus, the period provides a rich context for analysing the evolving gendered, class and racialised dynamics embedded in Maniol’s marketing discourse.

The analysis draws on the theoretical framework and methodological tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) (Machin and Mayr, 2013; Ledin and Machin, 2018, 2020). Following a social semiotic approach to communication, MCDA uses a range of tools to examine texts as integrated semiotic units, focusing on the interaction of textual, visual and design elements. This includes choices in language, image, colour, typography, texture and materiality, layout and composition. Analysing these elements aims to reveal how objects, people, events, processes and causalities are represented in texts (Ledin and Machin, 2018). These elements comprise what van Leeuwen (2008) calls “discursive scripts”, which draws on Foucault’s (1978) notion of “discourse” as the knowledge and understandings that dominate thinking in a society. In this study, MCDA is used to examine the discursive scripts in Maniol advertisements and how they are used to construct discourses around femininity, labour and class. This entails a reflection on the types of identities, ideas and values that are foregrounded, abstracted or concealed, as well as their ideological and political consequences (Ledin and Machin, 2018). Unlike most MCDA studies, which focus on contemporary texts, this analysis embeds these semiotic choices within the sociohistorical context of 1920–1940s Sweden, accounting for the norms and cultural assumptions that guided the creation of the advertisements

All 100 advertisements were carefully examined, with detailed notes taken on recurring motifs, textual claims and visual features. Themes were identified through a systematic process of familiarisation, pattern recognition and iterative categorisation, grouping recurring motifs into broader conceptual categories. This process led to the identification of three primary themes:

1. the burden of respectable domesticity;

2. the performance of professional femininity; and

3. hands as a marker of feminine attractiveness.

The first theme captures how Maniol advertisements responded to the decline in domestic service and the rise of middle-class women performing housework themselves; the second responded to women’s increasing entry into white-collar employment, emphasising the importance of maintaining neat, presentable hands as a sign of professionalism; while the third positioned well-groomed hands as key to heterosexual desirability and success. In the following sections, each theme is explored using prototypical examples from the data set to support the arguments presented.

Maniol hand cream was developed by Henrik Gahns AB, a chemical-technical company based in Uppsala, Sweden. Although it first appeared on the market in 1906, Maniol only gained significant prominence during the 1910s as a result of an extensive marketing campaign that ran across the country’s daily national press.

Founded in 1867 with the initial aim of producing ink, Henrik Gahns AB soon found its niche in chemical preservatives such as Aseptin, used to preserve meat, and Amykos, an antiseptic disinfectant and mouth ulcer remedy (Uppsala Industriminnesförening, 2022). After their adoption by the Academic Hospital in Uppsala, both products brought the company considerable financial success and earned them numerous awards (ibid). This success laid the foundation for their expansion into cosmetics, starting in 1884 with soap, followed by dental care products such as Gahnelit toothpaste and tooth powder in 1897, eau de cologne in 1901 and a range of other personal care items by 1908, including Kryerol mouthwash, Healithin hand balm and Maniol hand cream (Ullenhag, 1984). The company later went on to expand its cosmetics range to include Christl, Hega, Tschania, Borzita, Mitzi and Watzins, developed by master hairdresser Watz from Odensala (Uppsala Industriminnesförening, 2022).

The exact origin of the product name Maniol is not documented, but it likely derives from the Latin manus, meaning hand, fitting the product’s purpose and consistent with the brand’s previous use of Latin and Greek-derived names. The suffix “-ol”, common in Swedish chemical terminology to denote alcohols, lends the name a modern, scientific resonance. Thus, together, they create a name that evokes both the product’s function and a sense of scientific credibility, aligning with early 20th-century marketing strategies that emphasised health, hygiene and modernity (cf. O’Hagan, 2022a). This nomenclature also mirrors other popular Swedish products of the time, including the lozenge Läkerol (läka meaning “to heal” in Swedish), the toothpaste Stomatol (stoma meaning “mouth” in Greek) and the mouthwash Kryerol (kryos meaning “cold” in Greek).

Figure 1 shows the packaging for Maniol. The cream is contained in a metal tube with a pale green hue – a colour often associated with the medical field and frequently used to signal freshness, cleanliness and healing (Ledin and Machin, 2020, pp. 106–107). This is furthered by the tube format, which suggests hygienic application, controlled dosage and daily usability. The overall design is minimalistic, featuring only the company and product name. “Gahns” is rendered in a font reminiscent of handwriting, evoking a sense of human care and craftsmanship (ibid: 127), followed by “Maniol”, with the initial “M” highlighted in red and the remaining letters in black. Beneath this, the tagline reads: “special cream for the hands”. The tube is housed in a cardboard box of matching colour and design, with the addition of a royal warrant on the side, which lends the product institutional credibility and prestige (Otnes and Maclaran, 2015).

Advertising played a critical role in boosting sales of Gahns’ products and enabling factory expansion, which, in turn, lowered costs for consumers. Gahns saw advertising as a “cultural and educational endeavour” aimed at informing the public about the importance of skincare, dental care and personal hygiene (Norqvist-Svensson, 2023). In line with the broader Swedish ethos of social responsibility, Gahns produced information booklets for retail staff, designed as “a continuing education course in skin and body care” (ibid). They also produced guidance for new mothers (Mammas bok) and even targeted children through picture books, such as Dad Tells the Story of the Tooth Troll (Pappa berättar om tandtrolle). By 1916, Gahns’ annual turnover exceeded 1m SEK (approximately £80,000), doubling the following year (ibid). After unsuccessful attempts to expand internationally, the company decided to focus predominantly on the domestic and wider Nordic markets, where it sustained steady growth in the decades that followed. Among the company’s most widely promoted products was Maniol.

In the first decade of its existence, Maniol was marketed through relatively unremarkable advertising. In spite of the increasing popularity of pictorial advertisements in the early 20th century (cf. Runefelt, 2019a), Gahns opted for modest, text-based advertisements placed inconspicuously at the bottom of one of Svenska Dagbladet’s middle newspaper pages. These early campaigns relied almost entirely on the authority of the Henrik Gahns name, which already carried significant weight because of the company’s success with chemical preservatives, disinfectants, soaps and perfumes. Typical copy stated simply: “Henrik Gahns AB Maniol skin cream with glycerine” (20 December 1906). This formulation blends two types of legitimation identified by van Leeuwen (2017) – “personal authority” and “expert authority” – as it draws legitimacy from both the founder’s name and his scientific credentials. The inclusion of “glycerine” adds a scientific veneer, though no details were provided about its properties or benefits for the skin. Other variations of the advertisement merely added: “Care for the skin with Maniol” (18 December 1914). Later advertisements began referencing Sweden’s long winters, but they remained textual in nature and neutral in tone, without overtly targeting any specific demographic: “When the winter cold comes and makes the skin on the face and hands dry, Maniol should be applied immediately” (28 November 1916). Of particular note is also the fact that the advertisements were almost exclusively produced during the winter months – from November to February – before disappearing entirely for the rest of the year.

However, moving into the 1920s, as the company’s marketing budget increased, its advertising began to reflect broader social changes in early 20th-century Sweden. A marked shift occurred as advertisements became increasingly visual, emotionally charged and explicitly directed at women, using a range of rhetorical strategies designed to speak to contemporary concerns around femininity, beauty, race, class status and self-care. These campaigns also began to run year-round, reflecting Maniol’s transition towards a more sustained and strategically integrated approach to consumer engagement – one that positioned beauty not as a seasonal concern, but as a continuous and cultivated aspect of modern womanhood.

Like many other European nations, Sweden faced a “servant crisis” in the early 20th century. Domestic service had long been the dominant occupation among unmarried working-class women and was a “well-established part of constructing a social identity in the bourgeoisie” (Edvinsson and Söderberg, 2010, p. 428). These middle-class households relied on servants – many of whom migrated to the city from the countryside – to maintain the ideal of the orderly, genteel home through cooking, cleaning and other domestic tasks (Moberg, 1978). However, by the 1920s, domestic service had become increasingly unappealing because of poor wages, lack of personal autonomy, social isolation, irregular hours, low status and limited opportunities for advancement (Magnus, 1930).

As new opportunities emerged in the rapidly expanding sectors of commerce, communications and retail, the number of domestic servants decreased rapidly (Edvinsson and Söderberg, 2010, p. 422). For the middle-class housewife, this posed a significant problem. While upper class families could continue to attract servants with high wages, middle-class women now faced the prospect of performing manual labour themselves – labour that visibly marked the body, especially the hands, in ways that threatened their femininity and social respectability (Katzman, 1978). Beauty brands such as Gahns identified a commercial opportunity in this cultural anxiety and began to reframe their Maniol hand cream as a tool to maintain class identity and conceal the visible traces of housework.

This concern is particularly evident in an advertisement from 24 April 1925 entitled “Beautiful Hands Despite Kitchen Management” (Figure 2). At the top of the page are two images in overlapping frames. The larger, set in a circular frame in the foreground, shows a fashionably dressed woman with a shingle bob haircut and black dress gracefully greeting a male admirer who kisses her hand; the smaller, in a square frame in the background, depicts the same woman in an apron scrubbing kitchen surfaces. The layering of the frames gives a sense of temporality to the images, implying that the scene of domestic labour precedes the moment of social elegance (cf. Ledin and Machin, 2020, p. 177). The shapes of the frames themselves are also symbolically significant. According to Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, p. 54), circles evoke the “natural order of the world” and carry connotations of mystery, while squares are associated with the “mechanical, technological order of the world of human construction” and signal rationality, structure and truth. In this context, the circle elevates the public performance of femininity and class, while the square quietly discloses the hidden reality of life without domestic help. Together, they reveal the dual pressures placed on middle-class women in the interwar years: to uphold the aesthetic ideal of leisured gentility while privately shouldering the physical burdens of housework.

The accompanying copy states:

The tone of the language is rather alarmist, using words such as “exposing”, “risk” and “irritation” to foster anxiety and intensify the perceived urgency to act (cf. O’Hagan, 2021). In other Maniol advertisements, this rhetoric intensifies further, with dishpan hands described as “evil” and the use of provocative straplines such as “save your hands!” (22 January 1935). Against this backdrop of threat, Maniol is positioned as a form of salvation – a product elevated to the role of “deliverer” (Loeb, 1994, p. 111), capable of healing damaged skin and concealing the visible traces of manual labour. The bottom of the advertisement emphasises that the Gahns name is a “guarantee of a first-class brand”, invoking the “expert authority” (van Leeuwen, 2017) of brand reputation to further legitimise the product’s effectiveness.

As advertising techniques became more sophisticated, illustrations were increasingly replaced by photographs, thereby enhancing the “truth value” of the discourses portrayed (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996). A case in point is an advertisement from 10 October 1937 (Figure 3), which shows a neatly groomed woman with her head in her hands and a sorrowful expression on her face. A black thought cloud surrounds her, signalling distress (cf. O’Hagan, 2024b), while the accompanying title “Without a maid” anchors the cause of her unhappiness. However, the viewer’s attention is quickly redirected to her delicate, well-maintained hands prominently displayed in the foreground, alongside the second part of the caption: “but lovely hands!” This interplay between image and text exemplifies Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) notion of “Given” and “New” information, where the emotional burden of housework is the given reality, but the maintenance of beauty and social respectability is made possible through the use of Maniol. At the same time, the advertisement appears to trivialise the “servant crisis” by implying that lacking a maid is acceptable so long as one’s hands remain visually appealing. The text accompanying the advertisement warns:

The mention of skin becoming “white” signals a racially coded beauty ideal, linked to Nordic whiteness and notions of social and moral refinement, which at the time were shaped by racial biology and eugenic thinking (cf. Lundström and Teitelbaum, 2017).

In another advertisement, a smiling woman washing a pile of dishes engages in direct eye contact with the viewer and declares, “Nobody needs to have ugly hands anymore!” (27 February 1938). The authority of this message is strengthened by its apparent delivery from a peer rather than a company spokesperson, evoking what van Leeuwen (2017) terms “personal authority”. As Loeb (1994, p. 11) notes, in the context of early 20th-century domestic culture, such public testimonials served to build credibility by cultivating a sense of community and shared experience among women, encouraging them to place trust in the product through identification with others like them. This strategy is further developed in a series of advertisements that mimic the style of Agony Aunt advice columns. These feature fonts resembling typewritten text (cf. Ledin and Machin, 2018, p. 78) and include visual cues such as an envelope at the top of the page overlapping the photograph of an unhappy woman, which enhances their epistolary realism. One striking example is titled “Cinderella Hands!” (6 October 1940) – a clear nod to the fairytale and its themes of domestic toil followed by transformation and social elevation. Here, the advertisement presents a segment of the fictional reply recommending Maniol, alongside an image of the woman transformed into a glamorous Cinderella figure. Notably, the visual style shifts from photographic realism to illustration, imbuing the scene with a fantasy-like quality that reflects what van Leeuwen (2017) describes as “mythopoesis”.

Other advertisements place the woman’s hand as the central visual element to emphasise Maniol’s role in concealing the signs of domestic labour. For example, an advertisement from 28 January 1929 (Figure 4) shows a middle-class woman standing over a large bucket of soapy water, washing laundry, her head bowed in concentration. Yet, the main focal point is an oversized image of her dainty, slender hand overlapping the slice-of-life illustration. The hand has perfectly manicured nails, a large jewel-encrusted ring and a frilly sleeve – markers of status and refinement. This portrayal idealises household work with an “implausibly tidy aesthetic”, transforming the “shadow subject” of domestic labour into an object of contemplation and aspiration for viewers (Mapes, 2021, p. 70). The fingertips lightly touch the Maniol bottle, creating a “causality” between use of the product and the ideal hand (Ledin and Machin, 2018, p. 186). The copy reiterates the necessity of doing household tasks but maintaining secrecy about the labour involved. It also once again emphasises whiteness, presented as the ideal goal and “natural” state for consumers, implicitly excluding those who do not fit this standard:

The strapline, “the hands’ protector”, frames Maniol as a heroic guardian of idealised femininity (cf. O’Hagan, 2021).

Again, photographs came to replace illustrations in the 1930s, enhancing the discourse of hands as objects of desire and consumption (Mapes, 2021, p. 85). An advertisement from 29 January 1935 (Figure 5), for example, states, “She is the housewife with beautiful hands…”. and features a sensual image of a bare shoulder, a dainty hand resting casually on her chin and just her lips visible. The accompanying caption builds a vignette encouraging readers to empathise with this slice-of-life depiction:

The emphasis on “graceful white hands” symbolically represents cleanliness, purity and middle-class femininity – qualities that contrast starkly with the dirty, unseen manual labour of housework but also reinforce racialised beauty ideals in much the same way as contemporary soap advertisements framed dark skin as undesirable (cf. McClintock, 1995). This upholds social ideals tied to physical appearance and respectability, while presenting domestic labour as a shameful secret, somewhat belittling the many working-class women who performed such tasks for years. In a later advertisement (6 March 1938), the middle-class woman is shown in a restaurant, elegantly dressed and toasting with a glass of wine to showcase her hands, which are bordered by floral motifs emphasising her femininity. The accompanying slogan urges, “Display those beautiful housewife hands!” thereby seeking to reframe housework as compatible with glamour, provided that its physical traces remain hidden.

A recurring word across this body of advertisements is “wise” (klok), which functions as a key discursive device. As O’Hagan (2024a) notes, klok was frequently used in Swedish advertisements during the early 20th century to acknowledge the housewife’s savviness and imply that she knew what the sensible, socially acceptable choice was. The term also appears regularly in contemporary household management manuals, where it is often related to thrift and efficient domestic planning (cf. Jonsson, 2009). In the context of Maniol advertisements, however, klok refers specifically to the woman’s knowledge of how to protect her hands – and, by extension, her social status – through the use of cosmetic products. Similar strategies appear in margarine advertisements of the same period (O’Hagan, 2023a), which sought to elevate a product associated with the working classes by stressing that it was indistinguishable from butter, thereby enabling housewives to “fool” guests and preserve middle-class respectability.

Many of the Maniol advertisements also presume a shared understanding of this domestic burden, with one boldly claiming that “the mistress must nowadays take care of housework much more than before” and, thus, her “greatest worry” is that her hands are becoming “red, chapped and destroyed” (21 November 1926). This exaggerated framing reduces a multitude of potential concerns to a singular, aesthetic anxiety, again invoking the ideal of klokhet (wisdom): the woman must do the labour, but she can be “wise” enough to conceal its marks. What is particularly striking across these advertisements is the almost mythical quality with which Maniol is imbued. There is no mention of ingredients, scientific rationale or how the product works; only the assurance that if one uses the cream, their “problem” will disappear (cf. Eriksson and O’Hagan, 2021 for similar findings). Thus, the underlying message is that if you are klok, you will simply trust in the miracle cure being offered.

Although women were often portrayed as homemakers, the early 20th century saw more women active in the labour market than ever before (Simonton, 1998). This included not only working-class women who needed to support their families but also an aspirational lower middle class seeking new opportunities in commerce, communications and retail (Broström, 2019). By 1920, the Swedish workforce numbered approximately 2,413,000, of which 585,000 were women, making up 24.4% of the total (Unga, 1976, p. 48). By 1930, this figure had risen to 732,000 (ibid). As increasing numbers of women moved into outward-facing roles, they were expected to maintain a polished appearance consistent with contemporary ideals of femininity. Balancing modern professional labour with a performative, expected femininity, thus, became essential (Runefelt, 2019a). Hands – well-groomed and free of visible signs of manual work – became symbolic of competence, decorum and professionalism, offering Maniol yet another opportunity to capitalise on this cultural anxiety in its marketing.

While advertisements responding to the servant crisis persisted throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the focus on professional femininity emerged more distinctly in the 1930s. This shift is apparent in an advertisement from 5 February 1935 with the headline, “She can wash clothes, wash dishes and scrub… but… she got the job because of her beautiful hands!” The rather patronising text downplays the woman’s skill and intelligence in favour of her appearance, suggesting that her value lies primarily in her physical presentation rather than her competence (Runefelt, 2019a). This reflects a broader cultural logic of gendered labour where women’s professional worth was often measured by their ability to perform femininity through appearance, a dynamic noted by Bordo (1993) in discussions of the gendered body as a site of social control. The advertisement invites women to emulate this ideal by assuring them “you can too!” if they use Maniol, reinforcing the imperative for self-surveillance and aesthetic labour as a pathway to success (cf. Banet-Weiser, 2018).

This idealisation of the woman’s hands as a marker of professional femininity is further developed in a later advertisement from 20 September 1936 (Figure 6). Here, a stylish young woman with a shingle bob, earrings and a fancy cape is shown carefully rubbing cream into her hands. The title boldly states, “My job demands beautiful hands!” underscoring the intimate connection between the woman’s professional identity and the appearance of her hands. The accompanying copy goes further, declaring:

This explicitly acknowledges the evolving role of women in society: the modern woman not only manages her household but also participates actively in the workforce. Maniol is, thus, positioned as an essential aid that helps women balance these dual responsibilities, maintaining both their professional image and domestic duties. Legitimation is achieved here through what van Leeuwen (2017) terms the “authority of conformity”: the implication that all women are doing this, so you should too, tapping again into the cultural value of klokhet (wisdom). Notably, this advertisement is the first to incorporate scientific discourse, explaining that Maniol makes the hands “white and soft” by restoring the “sebaceous membrane”. The use of quotation marks around this term suggests it is unfamiliar jargon to the audience. However, a simplified explanation follows, describing the sebaceous membrane as “the skin’s natural protection against the air’s drying effect”. This simplification serves to make the science accessible and believable, thereby enhancing the product’s credibility and reassuring consumers of its effectiveness in restoring skin to its “natural” (read: white) condition (O’Hagan, 2021). It further claims that Maniol is absorbed directly into the “cell tissue”, reinforcing the product’s efficacy with a quasi-scientific appeal. Additionally, the advertisement introduces a liquid version of Maniol containing witch hazel, described as “a wonderful drug, deeply soothing”. Labelling a herbal remedy as a “drug” elevates it to a medical status, imbuing it with greater authority and trustworthiness (Eriksson and O’Hagan, 2021).

Other advertisements more explicitly target specific professions rather than addressing the modern working woman more generally. An example from 5 November 1935, for instance, highlights particular office-related tasks that can harm the hands, such as changing ribbon tapes in typewriters or exposure to dust from sharpening pencils. Similarly, a 28 March 1937 advertisement (Figure 7) highlights the physical toll of nursing on the hands, featuring a photograph of a nurse in her distinctive white tunic and hat, carefully applying cream to soothe her skin. Santos (2020, p. 170) notes how the white coat could be used as a sign of scientific authority in beauty advertisements – a practice popularised by “beauty scientists” such as Helen Rubenstein, who wore one in publicity photos. Here, the nurse’s uniform indexes an ethos of care and cleanliness, which reinforces the product’s promise of protective efficacy. Above the nurse’s image, an illustration depicts hands under a tap, paired with the title, “26 times in 8 hours …” quantifying the rigorous handwashing routine typical of nurses. This numerical detail functions as an intertextual device that constructs a narrative of labour intensity and risk (Ledin and Machin, 2018, p. 185). The continuation of the caption further down the page – “but beautiful hands”! – invites viewers to reconcile this demanding work with the aspiration of maintaining femininity and social respectability through Maniol. The advertisement makes good use of light and shadow to accentuate the nurse’s smooth hands, signalling idealised textures that evoke desirability and health (Ledin and Machin, 2020, pp. 149–150). This type of “glow” is seen by Dyer (1997) as a key quality in idealised representations of white women because it conveys purity, virtue and social respectability.

The copy is similar to previous advertisements:

However, this time, the scientific word “sebaceous membrane” is now presented without quotation marks, suggesting readers are more familiar with the term, having been introduced to it in previous advertisements.

Similarly, an advertisement from 22 August 1937 targets a female photo lab technician. Again, she is depicted in a white lab coat – a visual symbol of scientific authority and professionalism (Santos, 2020) – while developing photos in a chemical bath, her hands visibly wet. The wetness here visually signals the constant exposure to damaging substances, thereby highlighting the vulnerability of her hands and the need for protection (cf. Ledin and Machin, 2020, pp. 155–156). As with Figure 7, this advertisement uses light and shade to foreground the softness and care of the woman’s hands, visually contrasting the harshness of the working environment with the smooth skin that Maniol promises to protect. The headline is presented in two parts: “In water and chemicals…” at the top of the page, followed later by, “but beautiful hands”, setting up Maniol immediately as the solution to the problem (cf. Jovanovic, 2014). This is also foregrounded in the accompanying text, which warns, “Beware of working hands!” before explaining how this damage can be avoided by rubbing in Maniol several times a day.

Another particularly provocative advertisement from 2 April 1939 features a large photographic headshot of a beautiful young woman, styled in the manner of Hollywood starlets of the era, with a fully made-up face, elegant jewellery and carefully coiffed short curls (Figure 8). She looks directly at the camera in what Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, p. 122) describe as an act of “demand” – a visual mode that engages the viewer and implies an expectation or call for response. Her hands are raised beside her face, the wrists encircled by a hand-drawn shackle bearing the stark and emotive phrase “SLAVE HANDS?” The connotation here is potent and multi-layered. Shackles, as O’Hagan (2023b) discusses, were commonly used in early 20th-century Swedish discourse, notably by the temperance movement, to symbolise enslavement – especially to alcohol – forming a widely recognised metaphor for bondage and lack of freedom. In this advertisement, the shackle metaphor is mythopoesised (cf. van Leeuwen, 2017) to suggest the brutal, relentless labour that leaves hands rough, worn and damaged, evoking the image of a person forced into backbreaking, servile work. Yet, the accompanying text offers a powerful counter-narrative:

The phrase “never need remember” is particularly striking, as it suggests a form of erasure or concealment of the marks of domestic labour, enabling women to flourish in professional life. Additionally, the idea of restoring whiteness and beauty to the hands is particularly potent against the shackles image and “slave hands” caption, implying a desire to distinguish oneself from racialised “otherness”.

Recognising the increasing busyness of women’s lives and their competing demands, Maniol advertisements also emphasise simplicity and convenience as key selling points. The promise of just a “two-minute treatment” suggests that the hand cream easily fits into women’s everyday routines without imposing additional burdens (cf. O’Hagan, 2024a). This message is visually reinforced in a 10 November 1935 advertisement through a two-part diagram, exemplifying what Ledin and Machin (2018) describe as “integrated designs” – a semiotic strategy that breaks down complex information into clear, technologised steps for easier understanding. The first image, captioned “Do this in the evening”, depicts cream being massaged into the hands, accompanied by the instruction to “massage up and down as if you are putting on a glove”. By linking the new practice to a familiar, everyday gesture, the advertisement makes the application process more intuitive and easier to follow (cf. Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996). The second image, entitled “See the results in morning”, shows the same hands with fingers splayed and the caption stating they have “become soft and smooth”. Although the second step requires no action, the sequential format implies a logical cause-and-effect progression, which works as an effective communication strategy (cf. Ledin and Machin, 2018, p. 165).

Towards the end of the 1930s, Maniol’s advertising shows a notable shift with the introduction of male-targeted campaigns focusing on professions where hands are central tools of labour. These advertisements depict gardeners tending flowers with trowels and watering cans or manual labourers with hands blackened by dirt and soot. The representation of hands here contrasts sharply with the feminine ideals promoted in earlier advertisements: rather than emphasising softness or delicacy, these male hands signify ruggedness, strength and resilience, aligning with culturally constructed notions of masculinity (cf. Connell, 1995). A case in point is an advertisement from 19 October 1939 (Figure 9). The bold title, placed diagonally on a rectangular card at the centre, reads “Male hands also need Maniol” and is overlaid on an image of a large shovel and two pairs of darkened floating hands visibly performing manual labour (Mapes, 2021, p. 70). The detailed depiction of veins bursting in the arms and the strong grip visually communicates physical power and endurance. The copy states:

In Swedish, the word spadtag has a clever double meaning, combining the literal sense of a “shovel full” with the figurative sense of “taking a big step”. This linguistic play works in harmony with the visual imagery, subtly encouraging men to take a chance on hand cream, not as a sign of vanity but as a practical aid for hardworking hands. The copy also emphasises durability and cost-effectiveness, distancing itself from the delicate femininity associated with earlier advertisements and instead valorising the masculine ideal of resilience and pragmatism (cf. Connell, 1995).

As we have seen throughout this paper, in the 1920s and 1930s, women in Sweden gained increased visibility in the workforce, greater workplace rights, financial independence and political emancipation (Edvinsson and Söderberg, 2010). However, this period of growing autonomy was paradoxically accompanied by an intensified discourse surrounding the need to discipline their bodies. While such regulation of women’s bodies has deep historical roots (cf. Peiss, 1998), Frykman (1994) argues that it gained new prominence with the rise of social democracy and the welfare state (Folkhemmet) in Sweden. Within this context, the notion of self-care became integral to the construction of the responsible citizen – one who would not become a burden on the state. This fostered a “new bodily awareness”, where individuals were increasingly told how to organise their daily lives and care for their bodies, which were now seen as part of the “planned economy of the welfare state” (ibid, p. 68).

Although this disciplining of the body was not exclusive to women, it manifested in distinctly gendered ways, particularly through ideals of physical appearance and attractiveness. For women, looking good was not only associated with securing employment, but also with attracting a husband, raising children and ultimately contributing to the success of the nation (Franzén, 2002). In this ideological framework, sexuality was something that “had to be made socially, economically and psychologically productive and beneficial” (Frykman, 1994, p. 68). Racial “purity” ideologies also fostered fears of intermarriage with “non-Nordic” groups, linking bodily discipline and appearance to the maintenance of racial hierarchies (Ericsson, 2021).

This discourse gradually trickled into various areas of popular culture, most notably beauty advertising, where the aesthetics of self-presentation were subtly recast as civic obligations (O’Hagan, 2022a). This is evident in Maniol advertisements, where hand cream was marketed as essential not just for the modern professional woman or the middle-class housewife managing without domestic help, but as part of a broader social democratic imperative. Here, maintaining soft, attractive hands was framed as a woman’s duty – integral to her roles as worker, wife and mother within the welfare state. These advertisements, thus, celebrate female modernity while simultaneously framing women through the male gaze, reinforcing heteronormative ideals that positioned beauty and sexuality as central to feminine identity.

This dynamic is clearly illustrated in an advertisement from 3 April 1932, featuring a large photograph of a couple embracing, with the woman’s hand gently resting on the man’s cheek (Figure 10). Both are dressed in formal attire, their heads tilted downward in what Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, p. 119) describe as an act of “offer”, presented as “objects of contemplation […] as though they were specimens in a display case”. This compositional framing compels the viewer to focus on the woman’s hand and the clear affection expressed between the two figures. The headline and strapline read: “Beautiful, young, white hands… don’t let them lose their charming, lovely softness… otherwise, they become red and chapped… making you look prematurely old”. Here, premature ageing is constructed as a highly undesirable condition, yet one that can be arrested or reversed through consumption. The implication is that this prevention of ageing serves not only the woman herself but also functions to maintain her attractiveness for the man, reflecting gendered expectations around appearance and desirability (Kenalemang, 2022).

The copy reads:

It relies on “expert authority” (van Leeuwen, 2017) to legitimate the benefits of Maniol, citing “researchers in the field of beauty care”. This deliberately vague reference – lacking specific names or institutions – deagentises the source of authority, removing identifiable experts, yet still evokes the legitimacy and prestige of science and medicine, thereby elevating beauty care to a quasi-scientific domain (cf. Chen and Eriksson, 2021). Likewise, it claims that “thousands of women and men” use the product, appealing to social conformity by invoking the authority of the majority and suggesting widespread trust and acceptance (van Leeuwen, 2017). While Maniol is said to contain both aforementioned remedies (one designed to “soften and heal” the skin, the other to “whiten and beautify the hands”), it withholds the exact nature of these ingredients, maintaining a balance between mystique and credibility (cf. Eriksson and O’Hagan, 2021). Again, here, whiteness is directly associated with beauty, positioning pale skin as the culturally coded standard of attractiveness.

Similar themes are at work in another advertisement from 6 November 1934 that shows a close-up of a couple’s hands (Figure 11). The man’s hands rest atop the woman’s, evoking traditional notions of masculine authority and feminine vulnerability, along with gendered dynamics of protection and possession (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996). The strapline, taken to come directly from the woman, reads, “My fiancé said yesterday – what soft, white hands you have”, signalling the man’s attraction to her hands and echoing Runefelt’s (2019a) argument that advertisements fragmented women’s bodies into zones of work, subject to constant self-policing to maintain attractiveness. The choice to use “fiancé” in this advertisement is calculated, suggesting a liminal relationship status – more committed than a boyfriend but not yet a husband – implying the condition of her hands could be crucial to maintaining or advancing the relationship (cf. Mandziuk, 2010). The woman goes on to speak in an informal tone:

The emphasis here is placed on a continual, disciplined effort to erase signs of labour, not for social respectability in public spaces but as a means of preserving her fiancé’s desire and approval within the intimate sphere of the relationship. This framing suggests that the woman’s labour must remain invisible to uphold ideals of femininity and attractiveness, aligning with McRobbie’s (1991) notion of the male gaze, where female bodies are regulated to meet male expectations. Again, the cultivation of “white” hands signals membership in a culturally valorised category of femininity, with implicit racial and social overtones.

Perhaps, the most explicit example of “beautiful hands” being framed as a woman’s primary asset – and the key to romantic success – appears in an advertisement published on 26 February 1933 (Figure 12), entitled “Beautiful Hands Mean Happiness”. It features a staged image of a bride and groom at their wedding, with the groom placing a ring on the bride’s finger as she gazes down at her hands. This is followed by a close-up of their hands intertwined, encouraging the viewer to focus on the tactile intimacy of the gesture and, thus, visually reinforcing the idea that manicured, feminine hands are central to achieving marital bliss. The sequencing of these images constructs a narrative (cf. Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996): that the path to happiness – and by extension, a successful heterosexual union – lies in the proper care of one’s hands through the use of Maniol cream. Importantly, the advertisement allows no space for alternative motivations for maintaining one’s hands, such as health, practicality, self-respect or personal preference, nor does it acknowledge the possibility of independent sources of happiness. Instead, it assumes that such labour is undertaken solely to attract a male partner and to fulfil the idealised role of wife, implying that happiness can only be achieved through romantic success and domestic conformity (Mandziuk, 2010; Runefelt, 2019a).

The text accompanying the image deepens this message:

Its scaremongering tone advises women to “care for them so you don’t need to hide them” and warns that “they are noticed more than you think”, culminating in the judgement that a “neglected” hand “betrays carelessness”. These statements construct a moral dichotomy between responsible and irresponsible femininity (cf. O’Hagan, 2022a), implicitly suggesting that women who do not use hand cream are failing not only themselves but their gender as a whole. This rhetoric plays into what Bordo (1993) calls the disciplinary power of beauty norms, where women are expected to self-regulate their bodies in the name of social acceptability and desirability. The pressure to conform is reinforced by other advertisements in the same campaign that use value-laden rhetorical questions, such as: “Why should you go around with chapped red hands when it is so easy to keep them pretty and white?” (16 October 1938) or “Are you embarrassed when you must show your red and ugly hands to guests?” (23 February 1938). These questions place the burden of potential shame squarely on women, emphasising their supposed failure not only to meet normative standards of femininity but also to uphold the comfort and aesthetic expectations of others (Kenalemang, 2022).

Building on these gendered narratives of appearance, labour and romantic success, another advertisement – published on 4 February 1940 (Figure 13) – echoes the Agony Aunt formula found in earlier Maniol campaigns that addressed the so-called “servant crisis”. It presents a woman in a nightgown and hairband, seemingly wistful as she applies cream to her hands before bed. A thought bubble beside her reads, “perhaps a kiss on the hand”, accompanied by a vignette-style illustration of a man in formal – or possibly wedding – attire performing this very gesture. The stark contrast in modality between the photographic realism of the woman and the stylised illustration of the man signals a movement from everyday routine to romantic fantasy (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996), suggesting that the nightly ritual of hand care holds the aspirational promise of love and social advancement. This fantasy is grounded by a typed “response”, mimicking the format of personal advice columns. Beginning mid-sentence, it states:

The advice is signed off in a handwritten-style font, “Maniol from Gahns”, reinforcing the brand’s persona as an expert guide while also personalising the communication (Ledin and Machin, 2020, p. 127). The advertisement’s emphasis on “refinement” and “culture” implicitly links beauty with white middle-class respectability – a recurring theme across the campaign. This is subtly signalled in other advertisements through imagery of hands engaging in elegant, feminised activities, such as playing with a string of pearls (“Your hands deserve to be pretty” – 28 January 1934), removing a black leather glove (“Stop—do you dare show your hands?” – 6 October 1935) or participating in card games (“What language do your hands speak?” – 22 May 1932). Such images suggest that hands must always be presentation-ready for moments of inspection, flirtation or touch – contexts implicitly oriented around male attention, approval or fantasy (Connell, 1995). Thus, the cultivated female hand becomes both a sign of class and race identity and a vehicle for heterosexual appeal.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Sweden experienced profound social transformation, shaped by the rise of the social democratic values of the Folkhem welfare model alongside cultural shifts influenced by modern youth culture, particularly Hollywood cinema and jazz (Franzén, 2002). Women in this period were granted new rights, such as universal suffrage, and gained access to expanding job opportunities, leading to greater financial independence and improved working conditions (Broström, 2019). However, these social changes also redefined domestic life, with the decline of household servants leading many middle-class women to take on the manual labour of running their own homes for the first time (Edvinsson and Söderberg, 2010). Alongside this, ideals of bodily discipline linked to civic responsibility became prominent, emphasising the management of the body as a contribution to the nation’s well-being (Frykman, 1994). At the same time, ideas from racial biology and eugenics circulated widely, promoting Nordic whiteness and notions of racial “purity” as markers of social and moral worth (Idevall Hagren, 2021).

Within this context, visible signs of physical labour – particularly on women’s hands – became potent markers of class, race and respectability. This paper has traced how these concerns were constructed and mobilised through the marketing of Maniol hand cream by Henrik Gahns AB. Initially marketed as protecting hands against Sweden’s harsh winters, Maniol’s advertising evolved throughout the 1920s and 1930s to address anxieties about gender, class, race and the aesthetic management of the body. For middle-class women, worn or rough hands threatened to reveal the manual work they now performed, potentially undermining their social standing. Thus, Maniol was promoted as a “wise” (klok) and almost magical remedy capable of restoring soft, beautiful hands and, thus, enabling middle-class women to conceal the signs of domestic labour and uphold ideals of refinement. For women engaged in outward-facing professions, damaged hands risked compromising their professional identity and feminine respectability in the public eye. Maniol, therefore, also positioned itself as helping women to maintain a professional femininity. Yet, in spite of these societal shifts, advertising discourse continued to frame damaged hands above all as a significant barrier to achieving the socially valued goals of marriage and romantic success.

While Maniol advertisements occasionally invoked scientific legitimation through jargon and expert authority, their core persuasive power rested predominantly on emotional appeals, drawing on a range of linguistic, visual and other semiotic resources to construct powerful narratives of femininity, moral responsibility and social desirability. These advertisements skilfully combined close-up imagery of hands to evoke tactile intimacy and vulnerability with symbolic props and clothing to signal class and respectability. Carefully orchestrated framing positioned women as objects of the male gaze, reinforcing gendered dynamics of power and desire. The advertisements also relied on the clever juxtaposition of photographs and illustrations, contrasting reality with idealised fantasy to heighten emotional resonance. Techniques such as overlapping images created connections and emphasised the temporality or significance of events, while specific shapes conveyed cultural connotations. Textual-visual interactions were strengthened by moralising language, rhetorical questions and direct speech, in addition to the nuanced use of light and shade, depictions of texture (e.g. wetness) and typefaces mimicking handwriting or typewriting to evoke personal intimacy or authoritative expertise. Together, these multimodal resources worked to reinforce the message that well-cared-for hands were essential markers of femininity, social respectability and romantic desirability.

Underlying these messages was also a subtle racial dimension, with whiteness repeatedly emphasised in advertisements as the desired state for women’s hands. This resonated ideologically with prevailing Nordic racial theories and eugenic discourse in Sweden at the time, which framed pale, unblemished skin as a marker of racial “purity”, moral virtue and social worth (Lundström and Teitelbaum, 2017). By positioning whiteness as both an aesthetic and moral standard, advertisements such as Maniol’s reflected and reinforced the ways Swedish society sought to regulate female bodies in line with broader nationalist visions of a well-ordered, morally upright populace.

These types of Maniol advertisements persisted into the 1940s, although the volume of advertisements gradually declined as the brand became well-established and its reputation self-sustaining. However, from the late 1950s onwards, Maniol began to face increasing challenges because of rising international competition in Sweden (Uppsala Industriminnesförening, 2022). Additionally, new market dynamics emerged as hairdressers and specialist retailers demanded exclusive products not sold through general or department stores. Henrik Gahns AB hesitated to alienate its traditional customer base, limiting Maniol’s ability to adapt (ibid). In 1964, the brand was sold to Barnängens in Stockholm, which streamlined the product range while retaining Maniol (Norqvist-Svensson, 2023). In fact, in spite of multiple changes in ownership over the decades, Maniol remains in production to this day.

The discourse around “dishpan hands” persisted in UK and US cosmetics advertisements well into the 1990s, epitomised by Palmolive detergent’s campaign featuring Madge the Manicurist warning, “Call the police. These hands are a crime”^[2]. Contemporary advertising, however, has markedly shifted focus towards “the scientifization of beauty” (Chen, 2015), presenting products as cosmeceuticals: cosmetics imbued with medical innovations (cf. Kenalemang-Palm and Eriksson, 2023). Today’s advertisements foreground ingredients and dermatological benefits, frequently using buzzwords such as noncomedogenic, hypoallergenic and clinically tested. In spite of this shift, women remain the primary target audience, and the imperative to protect skin for aesthetic, rather than purely medical, reasons remains central.

Overall, this paper offers a fresh and critical perspective on class relations and gender dynamics in early 20th-century Swedish society through the lens of beauty marketing. By foregrounding the cultural and symbolic significance of women’s hands, it reveals how Maniol hand cream advertisements became a focal point for negotiating class and race anxieties, femininity and social respectability. It, thus, underscores the importance of situating advertising discourses within their broader sociohistorical contexts to show how they not only mirror but actively produce and sustain cultural anxieties, ideals and social hierarchies. It is hoped that this study will encourage further research into how class shapes – and is shaped by – consumption and advertising, particularly within the Swedish context, where class remains a vital yet underexplored dimension of marketing history. Beyond the Swedish case, these findings offer a framework for comparative research, enabling scholars to investigate whether and how similar advertising motifs were adapted and interpreted in different national and cultural contexts for hand cream and other beauty products.