The most beautiful hair in the world
is kept at its loveliest…
with Lustre-Crème Shampoo
Colgate-Palmolive Company launched Lustre-Crème Shampoo in 1944 and within a few years the product was endorsed by the biggest movie stars in Hollywood…
We know Lustre-Creme was still on the market in the mid to late 1960’s because Debbie Reynolds endorsed Lustre-Crème Shampoo in 1964 when she starred in the MGM movie The Unsinkable Molly Brown. The movie studios and advertisers often used co-op advertising to promote their products.
Prell shampoo, a competitive product to Lustre-Crème, was introduced by Proctor & Gamble in 1947
Like Colgate Palmolive’s Lustre-Creme Shampoo, then on the market for three years, Prell Shampoo was packaged in a tube. Years later Prell was packaged in a bottle where the brilliance of the green colour shone through and a television commercial featured a pearl slowly dropping into the Prell bottle demonstrating the thick, rich, luxurious shampoo.
As you might expect there’s a similarity in the two advertisements.
They look alike. The half-page Lustre-Crème photograph is on the top and Prell puts an equally large photograph on the bottom. The tubes of shampoo are shown.
“Try Prell and you’ll be thrilled at the difference just one shampoo makes.”
“You will notice a glorious difference in your hair after a Lustre-Crème shampoo.”
Prell’s headline promises that hair will be radiantly alive and Lustre-Crème assures the reader that hair will be kept at its loveliest.
Prell will leave hair so caressably soft and smooth, too….so willing to fall into natural, glamorous waves while Lustre-Crème will restore the natural sheen to hair and will renew highlights.
“For hair that behaves like the angels and shines like the stars…ask for Lustre-Crème Shampoo,” while “Prell’s Cleaning Action is truly a miracle!”
Prell’s tests “prove that ounce for ounce it leaves hair more radiant than any other leading shampoo!
Lustre-Crème claims that “No other cream shampoo in all the world is as popular.”
Prell also disappeared from store shelves but, unlike Lustre-Crème, the product got new life after Procter & Gamble sold it in 1999 to Prestige Brands International, who sold it to Ultimark Products in 2009, who sold it in 2016 to Neoteric Cosmetics. Prell Shampoo is seeing a resurgence in popularity as people are learning that that an old favorite shampoo is still around. It is available at Walmart and at CVS, Dollar General, RiteAide, Kmart, and Kroger.
Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive each began in the 1800s as small family-run soap and candle businesses. And both have managed not only to survive but to transform themselves into 21st century multinationals marketing personal-care products and numerous household-name brands.
Check this other brand battle between Colgate-Palmolive and Procter& Gamble
Palmolive or Ivory?
Colgate-Palmolive was founded by William Colgate in Manhattan in 1806. Today it is the world leader in toothpaste and other oral-care products and has also developed strong household care, fabric care and pet-nutrition product lines. It operates in 200 countries.
Personal care products include shower gels, shower creams, toilet soaps, liquid handwashes, shaving brushes & creams sold mostly under the Palmolive brand.
Its brands also include Colgate, Speed Stick, Irish Spring, Murphy Oil soap, Ajax, Fleecy, Softsoap and Hill’s pet Nutrition.
Procter & Gamble began in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1837. Today it is a personal-care behemoth with more than 300 products, 13 of which generate $1 billion per year in sales, and operations in 80 countries.
The company has a number of iconic, well-known brand names from laundry detergents and cleansers, to grooming and beauty products.
Some of the most popular and well-recognized names include: Tide, Bounce, and Downy; Pampers; Bounty and Charmin; Always; Gillette; Head & Shoulders; Dawn and Febreeze; Crest and Oral‑B; Vicks; Olay.
