The next time you blow your nose into a Kleenex, you're using technology that once stood between soldiers and chemical weapons. Before it became synonymous with facial tissues, the material behind Kleenex was developed as a life-saving filter for gas masks during World War I.

When World War I created a cotton shortage, Kimberly-Clark needed to innovate. The company developed a thin, flat wood cellulose-based substitute called Cellucotton. This crepe paper material became the filtering layer inside gas masks, protecting soldiers from mustard gas, chlorine, and other horrific chemical agents deployed in the trenches.

From Battlefield to Bathroom Cabinet

The war ended before Cellucotton saw widespread military use, leaving Kimberly-Clark with a stockpile of material and no obvious market. But the company saw potential in their wartime innovation.

In the early 1920s, they first adapted the material into Kotex, a sanitary pad for women. Then in 1924, they launched Kleenex tissues as a luxury product for removing cold cream and makeup. The original marketing targeted fashionable women, not people with runny noses.

The Pivot That Changed Everything

The tissues found their true calling by accident. Customers began writing to Kimberly-Clark saying they preferred using Kleenex as disposable handkerchiefs instead of makeup removers. The company tested both uses in advertising campaigns and discovered the handkerchief angle sold 60% more product.

By the 1930s, Kleenex pivoted completely with the slogan "Don't Carry a Cold in Your Pocket." The campaign positioned tissues as a hygienic alternative to cloth handkerchiefs, which people would use repeatedly (gross). It worked spectacularly.

War's Unintended Gifts

Kleenex joins a long list of everyday products born from military necessity:

Duct tape - Developed to seal ammunition cases in WWII
Microwaves - Discovered by a radar engineer who noticed his chocolate bar melting
Super Glue - Originally rejected as a precision gunsight material in WWII
Tampons - Nurses adapted WWI surgical dressings for menstrual use

Today, Kleenex is so ubiquitous that the brand name has become a proprietary eponym—many people say "Kleenex" when they mean any facial tissue, regardless of brand. Not bad for a product that started as a desperate wartime cotton substitute.

The journey from gas mask filter to tissue box took less than a decade, but it fundamentally changed hygiene habits worldwide. Every time you grab a tissue instead of reusing a handkerchief, you're participating in a cultural shift that began with WWI's chemical warfare—though thankfully, the only thing you're fighting now is a cold.

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