Wow, what an awesome triple alliterative title mostly borrowed from a UK Star Wars Weekly by Marvel Comics that we’ll be looking at soon.
One of the more unusual product tie-in areas is hygiene and beauty. Not many are more unusual than the product range released by UK company Cliro.
Cliro (named from two brothers called Clive and Robert, although Clive declined the offer of partnership) were a small manufacturing company based in London. Robert heard the buzz about Star Wars from his US friends and acquired the license to sell a range of bathroom products. There can’t be too many Star Wars fans in the UK who didn’t own some of these in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s!
I must admit I don’t remember these bubble baths – we were a Mr Matey household – but the bubble baths are super cool and fellow collector Peter Davis has fond memories of re-enacting the “Battle of Hoth” in his bath using the soapy suds! In the Galactic Bubbles range there is a counter display box and four different types of bubble bath to track down: C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader and Chewbacca. As you can see there are dark blue tops and a more difficult to track down red top variation. What has collectors in stitches however are the amazing descriptions written by Robert himself, including the original UK incorrect spelling of wookiee!
These “carefully made” Galactic Bubble Baths were extremely popular and are easily found in unused condition, although I doubt they’re still usable. It may be an idea to ask any seller to empty the contents before shipping!
Cliro got a little more stylistic with two more bubble bath designs which were popular thanks to great adverts like this in Marvel Star Wars Weekly.
….and in this catalogue advert they can be yours for just 8p per week for 20 weeks!
You will notice above that there are two soap moulds in the range. These soaps are also petty easy to find but there are variations to track down. The variation is on the soap itself, which as you can see below are quite different.
The most difficult piece to acquire is this set which features the nose cone of The Imperial Star Destroyer! It features a bubble bath and shampoo set showing an X-Wing and an Imperial Star Destroyer on the sides.
Many collectors may not be aware of this item which appeared on popular forums back in 2014. It was believed to be a model, which measured 4.5″ in height, which was used by Cliro as the basis for their R2-D2 moulds.
The owner believed that this item may also have been used as a model for photography purposes pre-shooting of Star Wars although this was disputed with solid provenance at the time.
Photos (c) theswca.com, Jason Smith, Andy Preston, starwars.com, starwarsforumuk.
