This is a 1916 song published as a piece of advertising by James Kirk & Co., makers of Jap Rose Soap. The sheet music presents "Jap Rose" as a beautiful young woman on the cover and in the words of the song, but then on the back it has a short comic verse with music about "Jap and Rose" illustrated by the two Jap Rose Kids, who were by that time familiar advertising icons and had even been made into dolls themselves by Horsman Co. The punch line is that after sitting on a pin, "Jap rose!" In the illustration, which is in the traditional style of Jap Rose advertisements, the children are shown in a very Japanese house and seem to be warning each other to be quiet so their mother can bathe in peace.

There is nothing Japanese however about this Jap Rose. The picture of the frizz-haired young woman, her naked skin glimpsed through the shower, with the mirror holding makeup and a long string of beads, suggests that the jazz age was already under way. The words of the song depict Jap Rose as a fragrant, white-skinned, stylish and desirable young woman who, though she bathes daily, luxuriates on Sunday mornings in a bubble bath. Since Sunday morning is traditionally a time to go to church, the message is even more hedonistic! Of course, this would not be true of a Japanese woman in Japan, but the cover and verses do not allow that interpretation.