BOMBS, BOOBS & BURGERS

The other day as I was putting on some deodorant, I started wondering where it came from. I did a little reading and was somewhat surprised at its back story.

Right Guard was originally created as a spray-on deodorant by Gillette back in the early sixties. It eventually morphed into the tube form that most deodorants come in. In 2025, Procter and Gamble acquired Gillette and was forced to sell the Right Guard brand, presumably because the company held too much power in the deodorant market.

The buyer of Right Guard was Dial Corporation, which is a subsidiary of Henkel, a German company based in Dusseldorf. Henkel, like many older German companies, was pressed into Nazi service during the Second World War. The company made use of prison camp labour and after the war had to pay heavy restitution to the people it helped victimize. Given that the company collaborated with the Nazis, that kind of makes the deodorant's name a little offputting, doesn't it?

Mind you, it's hard to have a problem with a product that is endorsed by no less than Chuck Norris himself:



Make no mistake, about it - the typical household is full of this sort of stuff. I've got a Panasonic TV and home theater system, for one. Panasonic is the main operating brand of Osaka-based Matsushita, which is a company that was nearly busted up after WWII because of its heavy involvement with the Japanese war effort. It's ironic how companies on the losing side nearly got taken out while many of those on the winning side immediately went on to become titans of industry.