Swedish Kitchen Advert - 1973

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"I have never seen one of those devices for stretching sheets and the like before ironing before, it looks rather useful to me"

In many parts of northern Europe tradition of kaltmangel (cold ironing) still holds. To fold long and large items such as sheets and table cloths into proper folds for putting through mangle (cold or heated) someone came up with that niffy device. It allowed one person to do the job easily instead of usual two.

On this side of pond we have "extra hand" or "third arm" folding devices that allow easier manual folding of large flatwork.



https://textileinnovations.com/gene...folder-bed-sheet-and-spread-folder-p-795.html
 
They’re interesting gadgets, but it just highlights how little ironing I do. I’ve never seen one of those in reality lol

Most of my clothes either don’t need ironing at all (knitwear, sweaters etc) - or I just take things out of the dryer or off the line and hang or fold them and a lot of lighter things like t shirts, sweaters and so on just go on a 1600 spin and straight onto clothes hangers in the laundry room, which opens our into the yard and has loads of ventilation.

I use the steam cycle on the Miele dryer if things need a bit of wrinkle relaxing and just put them on a hanger.

The only thing I really iron are shirts and I don’t wear suits. I might do the jacket over T-shirt thing with jeans. That’s about as business formal as I ever get.

If I’m being very fussy I iron the bed linen - on the bed, with a Tefal steam generator iron. Might do the pillow cases on an ironing board but that’s about it.
 
How is / was Surf positioned in Sweden?

It was a budget brand here but seems to be all about fragrance nowadays.
 
1993 Surf advert in Ireland - was all about price and a refund guarantee.





These ran for most of the 1990s and were somewhat intentionally of a particular tone, eventually somewhat sending themselves up. She was playing a soap opera character at the time.

Now it’s all about smelling like marshmallows or whatever it the current fad is.

I quite like their Herbal Extracts scent though..

I was just curious where it’s positioned in the Nordic market, as there are a few places where it’s the Unilever upper tier product. Internally they refer to that as Omo, even though it’s Persil, Skip, Surf etc depending on where you are and in France Omo seems to be the same product that is branded Surf here.

They seem to be increasingly following the same pattern as their ‘Heart Brand’ ice creams, where the logo is identical and the advertising is localised but there are umpteen local brand names. Omo seems to be “Splodge brand” [this post was last edited: 5/31/2022-03:52]
 
Coffee creamers never really took off here - might have been available.

Historically though we were never a coffee drinking country. There's a vast array of modern coffee houses serving absolutely everything you can think of, but tea is still the default drink at home and we still get consume a shocking 5 to 6 cups per day or about 300 litres of tea each per year!

 

Interesting though to see it had other uses lol

[this post was last edited: 6/11/2022-11:46]
 
The Netherlands is the 5th in rank of countries that drink the most coffee. And it's the first non-Scandinavian country on that list. Surprisingly Sweden is behind us. No wonder with such abominations as powdered creamer. lol

Most older people take a bit of evaporated milk in their coffee, I belong to that group too. Younger people use oatmilk etc. for all kinds of coffee variations. Ofcourse the real coffee drinkers drink black coffee. Tea is considered mostly here a drink for those who don't like coffee. Or you drink it when you need to lessen your coffee consumption.
 
Radion was a brand that appeared here for a few years and vanished again.

Unilever dropped it in as a mainstream detergent with an odour-removal focus. I didn't realise it was a long established Scandinavian brand.

It's quite possible the product launched in this market had little in common with it.

 

Wisk was briefly launched and withdrawn in or around that era too. 

 

Unilever also more recently launched Neutral 0%, the zero-fragrance Scandinavian brand, but primarily online only and never really pushed it very hard and then it vanished again. I didn't think they gave it much of a chance to take off. I'd have been quite keen on a non-scented version of their products.

 

Perhaps 'Persil Neutral 0%' would have probably been a better seller though.
 
Crystal Queen

Atlas refrigerators and freezers

I do not remember seeing these on sale in the UK yet the internal fittings are labelled in English, a relatively small range of appliances, of course, even back then, Electrolux would have had a major market share. I have never seen a chest freezer of that style, small capacity of the amount of floorspace it is taking up

 
Internal fittings were often in labelled in English, at least overhere in the Netherlands. We had a fridge in the 60's too with english labels. I guess manufacturers couldn't be bothered to change the language for every country.

That chest freezer has an amazing small capacity indeed in relation to it's size.
 

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