Stratton micraclean compact

During the 1950s, the age of invention, there was an attempt to introduce a device to save the appearance of mucky powder compact mirrors. While most of my compacts are empty, there's always the speckles and dusty marks of the powder left as a trace over the mirror. To counteract this occurrence, to save the lady from having to clean and re-clean the mirror, a simple bar was added to the sides of the compact, a bar which moved up and down with the movement of the opening and closing of the compacts lid. These felt backed bars was originally advertised around 1952 onwards, with a larger version later introduced in 1956. 

Until my parents came home with this compact as a present for me when they were on holiday up in Fife in Scotland, I'd never heard of any such device that could cleaned a mirror in this manner. Never was  it an easy task trying to find any source of information on the internet, and what was available could only make up pretty much one sentence. From this lack of information alone, one could assume that the micraclean bar was something of a flop - then again it was appearing just before the decade in which powder compacts were on the verge of decline, only to be replaced with the more throw-away powder bases we're so use to today.

Designed by Straton, this compact is very much of its 1950s era - very understated, sleek and practical. The top is embedded with rows of lines - very much like a bar code, its top tight shutting. It came complete with an unused well and it's original puff marked with the Stratton logo and pinked stiffer.

It's a reminder of the era compacts where trying to still be inventive and fight back against consumerism, its a shame they didn't win.