Hair yesterday, back tomorrow.

I saw an ad on TV for this product, which caught my eye:

So you're wondering:

1) Why did I see an ad for this product? Don't I only allow manly, masculine programming on my TV, the kind of shows that would never have advertising for girlie products?

2) Why would I care about Root Cover Up by L'Oreal? Isn't that only of interest to people who have, y'know, hair?

Well, to answer your snotty questions in the order in which I made them up:

1) Yes, of course I only put on manly, masculine programming, but my wife had the remote control because I was, uh, cooking. Manly food!

2) While it's true that I would enjoy more hair on my scalp than nature has seen fit to bless me with, my hair or lack of it has nothing to do with my interest in the product, which is all about the design of the package.

Because the fact is, this is a revival of a classic. In the post-war era, and proceeding into the late 1970s, hair salons (which have always been expensive to equip and thus redecorate) favored pink and, even better, turquoise:

Your chair's ready.

Furthermore, the slim serif font used on the can harks back to the era typified by this 1960 ad for Toni's home perm kit:

I'm very favorably impressed. We see revivals in products all the time, but I can't remember one that harked back further than the hippie era. This harks back to the era known to the Great Lileks as the Twilight of the Grown-ups.

Maybe it was not developed as retro so much as a Mad Men inspired product design. Either way, good on you, L'Oreal. Have a Lucky Strike and a Rheingold on me.