Adventures in Vintage Advertising: Life Savers Candy

It never ceases to amaze me how much time can whiz past at the speed of light between installments of certain reoccurring post series here. It feels like mere days in many ways since we last shone the spotlight on one particular vintage product, Cutex Nail Polish to be exact. In fact however, it has been eleven months, which means that it is absolutely high time we enjoyed another edition of Adventures in Vintage Advertising.
 
This time around, with Easter Sunday just a week away, it seemed highly fitting to center our attention on a classic, much beloved candy. But which one? Plenty of Easter staples that we enjoy today have been around for years and even decades, but few stretch back quite as far as Life Savers Candies, those delightful little powerhouses of delicious flavour that look like, fitting, the life saving device that they’re named after.
 
A roll (or two or three!) of Life Savers, often cherry or mixed fruit, was an Easter basket classic in my household when I was growing up and as a result, perhaps more than for any other holiday, I associate Easter with Life Savers candies, even if the two aren't always as instantly linked in society's eyes as this beautiful springtime holiday and chocolate, jelly beans and Peeps are.
 
Life Savers are one of a venerable group of sweets that can call themselves a centenarian. First created in 1912 by Garrettsville, Ohio candy manufacturer Clarence Crane, these inviting little disks with their missing centres were originally invented to be a summer candy that would hold up better in the season's sweltering heat than chocolate.
 
Having registered the trademark for Life Savers, Mr.Crane then promptly sold the rights for his candy (which at the time only came in a peppermint flavour called, rather adorably, Pep-O-Mint) to Edward John Noble for just under $3,000. Nobel is responsible for the iconic tin foil (latter aluminum foil) wrapper that has been used to help keep the candy extra fresh almost since day one, as well as for launching the Life Savers and Candy Company in 1913.
 
Life Savers proved to be a popular sweet snack and way to freshen one's breath from the get-go, with six flavours in total appearing on the scene by the end of the Edwardian era in 1919, including Wint-O-Green, Cl-O-Ve, Cinn-O-Mon, Choc-O-Late, Lic-O-Riche, and Vi-O-Let, the latter of which I blogged about here back in 2011). These six varieties, plus Malt-O-Milk (which wasn't a big hit), introduced in 1920, would remain on the Life Savers roster throughout the ensuing decade.

Though many different verities of Life Savers candies have come and gone, perhaps none is more beloved or easily recognized the world over than the iconic roll of five different fruit flavours packaged in a rainbow wrapper of red, orange, yellow, white and green stripes (representing the five flavours of (pineapple, lime, orange, cherry, and lemon), which first hit shelves in 1935. This classic lineup of flavours would remain in place in America until the early 2000s, when the mix switched to being comprised of pineapple, cherry, raspberry, watermelon, and blackberry (blackberry was later dropped and orange brought back in its place), and is still used here in Canada.

Long an affordable (for decades a pack of Life Savers cost a mere nickel), appealing candy that could easily be transported on the go, during WW2, it is said that various other candy manufacturers even went so far as to donate their sugar allotments to the Life Savers company in order to keep production of these lovely little candies going so that they could be shipped to the Armed Forces on the front as a, quite literally, sweet reminder of home.

No shortage of Life Savers flavours have come and gone over the course of this candy's 102 year history. A few, such as Butter Rum, are still with us today, but numerous others including Choc-O-Mint, Molas-O-Mint, Spear-O-Mint, and Stik-O-Pep, as well as cola, root beer, anise, menthol (intended as a cough drop), and musk (which is available to this day in Australia) failed to retain the endearing popularity of the classic fruit flavours for which Life Savers are so universally well known and loved.

The following selection of twenty-two vintage ads highlights many of the varieties that have found their way into the Life Savers lineup over the years and are a heartwarming, delightful look at the history of this lovely little candy aisle treat.



{According to this no frills ad, Life Savers were the fasting selling five-cent candy specialty in 1917. Sounds believable to me!}




{Life Savers and the military have enjoyed a long and wonderful relationship that stretches all the way back to the first World War, as noted in this ad for Pep-O-Mint candies that appeared in 1919 edition of Literary Digest.}




{"Eat one of these little pure-sugar rings and you will be wedded for life to the dainty, delicate quartet of Life Savers", says this matrimonial themed advert from 1919.}




{Back in the roaring twenties, in what has surely got to be one of the most, how shall we say, unique, Life Savers ad of all times, a subtly Dali worthy illustration is partnered with a classic children's nursery rhyme.}






{Fresh, crisp, tasty - it's 1920s Wint-O-Green Life Savers.}

{While I'm not sure if clove would be my first choice for a pleasurable hard sucking candy (it reminds me too much of natural tooth ache remedies), I'd happily savour any of the other flavours, Vi-O-Let very much included, in this c. 1930 Life Savers ad.}




{Grape Drops - the amazing new taste sensation of the early 1930s.}



{Grape wasn't the only solo fruit flavour of the 1930s to star in its own pack of Life Savers during the 1930s, orange proved popular on that front, too.}




{And going for a solo fruit flavour hat trick, luscious, sweet and tart lemon also joined the Life Savers scene in the 1930s.}

{Crys-O-Mint Life Savers were 'the very latest taste sensation' back in the early thirties.}

{A 1936 Life Savers candy ad that played off of popularity at the time of the famous Dionne Quintuplets (who were born in Ontario, Canada in 1934).}

{All it took to make young Seth a total ladies man back in the 1940s was a pack of Cry-O-Mint Life Savers.} 

{Undoubtedly one of the most delightfully fun Life Savers campaigns of all time, this 1943 married Disney's Gremlins with everyone's favourite candy with a hole in it.}




{Stick-O-Pep, a candy cane inspired peppermint flavour of Life Savers, has come and gone over the years, proving, naturally, most popular during the winter holiday season, as evidenced by this charming ad from 1948 that plays off of the biblical story of the birth of Baby Jesus.}




{An adored holiday season classic for decades now, the Life Savers story book dates back to the 1940s and has graced countless Christmas stockings from day one.}

{What's a five-flavour word for delicious? This candy ad from 1951 has the answer .}

{Okay, this is technically not a real Life Savers ad in the sense that, as far as I know, candies were never produced in these colours, but this chic 1950s fashion page for Kirkland Hall 'Life Savers Suits' was too fab not to share here. (For another 1950s fashion campaign that used Life Savers, see this delightful set of vintage ads over on Couture Allure.}




{Life Savers made itself especially well suited to holidays like Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Easter with it's Choc-O-Mint flavour during the 1950s.}




{One of the longstanding flavours of Life Savers, Butter Rum, offers up a soothing, mellow caramel-esque taste that finds favourite with fans of all ages, including a young pirate in this charming ad from 1957.}




{A canning jar from 1960 full of the the classic five flavours. Everyone has a favourite or two. Cherry and lime were always mine, how about you?}




{During the mid-1960s Life Savers decided to put on the ritz and spice things up by introducing Fancy Fruits, which boasted apple, pear, pink grapefruit and black raspberry flavours. I love all of these fruits and wish I would have gotten a chance to enjoy a roll before they went the way of the dinosaur.}




{If memory serves me right, I think I may have enjoyed at least a few rolls of Strawberry Life Savers, which were introduced in the late 1970s - and they were really, really good!}

{To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective source.}

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Though Life Savers candies are best known in North America and Australia (a very similar candy called Polo Mints was introduced by Rowantree in the UK in 1948), their widespread popularity has long extended beyond these two continents and numerous examples of Life Savers emerging in popular culture have appeared over the years, further spreading their appeal across the globe.

In addition to the original style of hard ring shaped sweets, many other Life Savers candies, as well as a short lived line of sodas based on the classic five fruit flavours, have appeared over the decades, including lollipops (another candy which I have very fond childhood memories of, as my mom would often hand them out to my siblings and I to keep up entertained and happy during long road trip) which were released in 1974, gummies, candy, canes, chewing gum, jelly beans, Creme Savers Hard Candies, and Holes (which were small cylinder shaped candies that were supposed to be the missing holes in the centre of the timeless Life Saver ring), but none have topped the original candy shape or flavours in terms of popularity and appeal (though I must say, Life Saver Gummies are pretty darn tasty!).

Though I wasn't born in time to enjoy a pack of Life Savers for just a nickel, I do remember a local Five and Dime in the nearby town of Summerland where you could get four packs for a dollar during sale days when I was a youngster. Nowadays a pack of Life Savers retails for around a dollar usually, which makes it on par with, or even a little less than, the price of most chocolate bars and similar checkout counter sweets.

Unlike many candies out there, at present, to the best of my knowledge and research, Life Savers remain gluten-free, which means that just as in the Easters of my youth, a pack of these refreshing, fabulously tasty candies can still make their way into my candy basket year after year. Now that's what I call an extra sweet treat! :)