the
brand name of an
American shaving
cream which was advertised using sequences of roadside billboards. Each sign had a
phrase on it, and each
set of signs communicated a witty saying, with the last sign saying "Burma Shave."
a
brand name for an
American shaving
cream developed in 1925. Burma Shave was a shaving
cream that did not require a brush be used in its application. It was produced by the
Burma-Vita
Company of
Minnesota, USA, and was popularized by advertisements placed on the roadsides of America. The advertisements consisted of a progressing
series of six signs. Each sign could be
read in three seconds at 35 miles (56.3 km) per hour and each contained a simple
line of a humorous rhyming jingle. Eventually, some 35,000
individual Burma Shave signs dotted US roads. However, by the midtwentieth century the
jingles had worn out, increased road speed made them
hard to
read and by 1965 the Burma Shave signs were
dropped entirely.