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Toiletry Gift Sets
Trumptonalia.
Camberwick toiletry gift sets
Apart from some character soaps manufactured by Jean Sorelle,Trumptonshire toiletries were the sole domain of a company called Wright,Layman & Umney.
At the beginning of the 70's they matched Sorelle's range of soap characters,and "Trumped" it with an additional range of bath foam characters in squeezable tubes and a tin of talcum powder.
And later on in the decade these were then repackaged into various toiletry gift sets.
And excellent they were too !
The 1st 2 sets shown above appear again below,only this time with full front and back shots.
Both boxes are 20cm x 14cm x 5cm
The Christmas one that features Dr.Mopp on the bath foam has a 1977 copyright.
With a cut-out-and-colour scene printed on the back.
The one that features Captain Snort on the bath foam has a 1978 copyright.
The cut-out rocking horse mentioned on the front is on the back
And there's a cut-out soldier on one side panel. With a snowy,carol-singing scene on the other ( despite the absence of any "Christmas" branding on the front.)
The tins of talc are all exactly the same,whatever the set,as only one design was ever produced.
None of the bath foam tubes are dated,as it was only printed on their individual boxes when originally sold.
Some of the sets,like the ones above,just had the talc and bath foam.
And some also had one of the character soaps as well.
No original boxes for either the bath foam or soaps were used.As the bare products were just slotted into a pre-formed plastic tray inside a new,purpose made box.
No sign of any of the range of toothpaste characters either,that were also made by Wright,Layman.
For reasons that have yet to be established.
And the presumption has always been that the sets were just a very neat way to shift some old,unstock stock.
Because ... all the items were mirror images of the originals ... none of them were time-limited by a shelf life ... and the tin of talc still carried the same 1970 copyright date.
In fact,such a logical selling opportunity that you're just left wondering why they didn't do it when the individual products were first launched,some years earlier.
These last 2 are not shown above ...
And as they've never been in my possession I'm limited in how much there is to show at present.
But at least it's some evidence they exist.And also the only examples,so far,of the 3 item sets with a soap included.
The added value element with these 2 was a "cut-out canon" for the left hand one ( think Pippin Fort )
And a Pippin Fort-inspired "tiddlywink game" for the one on the right.
And you'll also notice that while pics 2 & 3 both show the same set,they each have a different soap character. Although both have the same Dr.Mopp bath foam.
Why ?
Maybe a replacement soap was added to one after its purchase for some reason ?
Or maybe they were both sold like that and it was quite arbritary which characters you got ? -which,if true,probably goes for the bath foam too.
Because they certainly gave themselves the wiggle room to do it,as no specific characters are flagged up on any of the boxes.
So,hopefully some more will turn up and we'll get a better idea simply based on a broader sample.
But,that aside,it would also be lovely to see some more for no other reason than they're great !
And,judging by the number of years they spanned,you'd like to think there's a pretty good chance we will.
But until then ...
