Before people realized that radiation exposure could be fatal, they thought it was just a fancy ingredient that makes things glow.

Tho-Radia company has created a whole line of perfumes, creams, powders, lipsticks and other cosmetic products contained thorium chloride and radium.

Between 1931 and 1936, the German company Burk & Braun sold radioactive chocolate, that, according to their promo campaign, rejuvenated people.

In 1910s, the Radium Compound Company from Phoenix, NY, made hand cleaners contained radium.

Batschari (Germany) produced cigarettes with radium from 1910 to 1915. Another company produced condoms with radium, the third – clothes that was warming through radiation, and there are lots of such examples. The most popular was radioactive water, which allegedly healed people, and which killed the most ardent propagandist who called for treating everything with radioactive water.

Some museums still keeping artefacts from those times that are still radioactive and dangerous to humans. This period in the humankind history is a great example of the fact that fatal errors are always possible and that things considered today “useful and safe” can tomorrow kill thousands of people.

Links:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3278386/

https://io9.gizmodo.com/seriously-scary-radioactive-consumer-products-from-the-498044380