Kleenex is a brand name for a line of paper-based facial tissues. Often used informally as a genericized trademark for facial tissue, it is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark, applied to products made in 78 countries and sold in over 196 countries worldwide.
Kleenex began during the First World War when the Cellucotton company developed a crepe paper gas mask filter. In the 1920s, the product was modified into the menstrual pad Kotex.
A further modification of the original crepe paper made it thinner and softer, and the resultant 1924 product was called “Kleenex” and marketed as a cold cream remover. In line with the company’s requirements for their brand names to be short, easy to say, and easy to explain, the name Kleenex was selected as the “Kleen” portion of the name denotes its cleansing purpose with a sensational spelling of the word “clean”. The “ex” was added to show that Kleenex was of the family of products that included Kotex.
This was the first marketing of a disposable paper-based facial tissue in the Western world and was sold as a substitute for face towels or cotton wool. In 1925, the first Kleenex tissue ad was used in magazines showing “the new secret of keeping pretty skin as used by famous movie stars”.
A few years after the introduction of Kleenex, Cellucotton’s head researcher tried to persuade the head of advertising to try to market the tissue for colds and hay fever. The administrator declined the idea but then committed a small amount of ad space to mention using Kleenex tissue as a handkerchief. By the 1930s, Kleenex was being marketed with the slogan “Don’t Carry a Cold in Your Pocket” and its use as a disposable handkerchief replacement became predominant. In 1943, Kleenex began licensing the Little Lulu cartoon character to popularize the brand
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