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Thread Number: 70794
/ Tag: Other Home Products or Autos
Does anyone know the real history of Windex? |
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Post# 937658 5/11/2017 at 02:51 (2,541 days old) by d-jones  (Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh Area)) |
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The Wikipedia article and numerous others are puzzling. Wiki claims the product was introduced in 1933, yet I've never seen any advertising earlier than 36, and that advertising touts it as "the new easy way to keep mirrors sparkling." The term "new" is dropped from advertising by 37. The claim is also made that the original product was highly flammable and therefore sold only in metal cans until reformulated a decade after its introduction. The problem here is that the metal container they show as an illustration is a 1970's spray can and all of the earliest advertising from 1936 on clearly show the product in glass bottles with little pumps on top. Another article claims Windex was originally an automotive glass cleaner and only adopted for home use later. Yet here again the earliest advertising I can find for the automotive version dates to 1937 and describes the product as "the new green Windex especially developed for automobile use." So what gives? If this is an example of Wikipedia's accuracy I'm not impressed.
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Post# 937666 , Reply# 1 5/11/2017 at 05:15 (2,540 days old) by askolover (South of Nash Vegas, TN) |
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Post# 937669 , Reply# 2 5/11/2017 at 05:54 (2,540 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Mayhap this can help.
"Company founder Phillip Drackett began his career as a pharmacist in Cleveland, but his personal interest in chemicals soon drew him from the end products to their components. At the age of 56, Drackett got out of the drug business entirely to start a bulk chemical brokerage with his wife, Sallie, in Cincinnati in 1910. When their sons, Phillip Jr. and Harry, joined the firm in 1915, the company was incorporated as P. W. Drackett & Sons Co. The company sold chemicals, including lye, ammonia, and epsom salt, under the "diamond D" trademark. But, like its Cincinnati neighbor and sometime competitor, Procter & Gamble Co., Drackett would make its fortune from the emerging revolution in American homemaking.
Drackett's first consumer product, Drano, was developed from lye, a corrosive cleaner made by leaching wood ashes. Lye had long been used to dissolve animal fat into soap, and its cleansing power was well known. Drano's creation and success can be attributed, in large part, to the installation of indoor plumbing in most American homes after World War I. According to Susan Strasser's Never Done, an examination of housekeeping in the United States, indoor plumbing aroused a mixture of relief and apprehension in homemakers. While they no longer had to haul water and sewage to and from their homes, they now feared the specter of "sewer gas," clogged drains, and backups. Introduced in 1923, Drano helped alleviate this concern. Crystal Drano was a combination of solid lye and bits of aluminum that produced a hot, fizzing reaction that promoters called "churning action" to melt and scrub away dirt, grease and hair. The Dracketts soon proved themselves savvy marketers as well as an astute product development team. Sallie Drackett devised the Drano name, with the macron above the "a" that ensured there would be no confusion about the product's intended use. Her drawing of a gooseneck pipe with a dotted line representing clear-flowing pipes remained the Drano symbol throughout the brand's history. For nearly fifty years, Drano was virtually the only chemical drain cleaner used in American households. The company acknowledged its shift from industrial to consumer goods by changing its name from Drackett Chemical Co., which it had adopted in 1922, to just Drackett Co. in 1933, when it went public. Based on Drano's commercial success, Drackett turned its attention toward the development of other consumer cleaning products. The company's Windex, introduced in 1935, was the first successful glass cleaner on the market. Before its launch, window washing was reserved for spring and fall cleaning--and in many middle-class homes, it was reserved for the servants. But as hired help disappeared from the average domestic landscape, physically demanding and time-consuming chores such as window cleaning fell to homemakers. Windex's blue formulation of water, its trademarked "ammonia-D," and additional chemicals that hastened evaporation were both effective and convenient. The pre-mixed product eliminated hauling buckets, the need for a squeegee, and streaks. Windex's convenience prompted women to clean windows and mirrors more often, thereby increasing sales. Both Windex and Drano captured and held more of their respective markets than all other competitors combined for decades. " www.fundinguniverse.com/company-h... Here is a magazine advert from 1935: www.atticpaper.com/proddetail.php... Near as one has been able to find Windex was invented in 1933, but began marketed for automobile/domestic use in 1935 or 1936 (depending upon sources). We can see from the above advert Windex was clearly being offered for sale in 1935. Just to pour more petrol on this fire, they do say "Windex" was invented in 1933 by Erich Drafahl. According to the patent filing (Sam Wise patent #3,463,735) one example formulae was " 4.0% isopropyl alcohol (a highly volatile solvent) 1% ethylene glycol monobutyl ether (a less volatile solvent), 0.1% sodium lauryl sulfate (a surfactant), 0.01% tetrasodium pyrophosphate (a water softener), 0.05% of 28% ammonia, 1% of a dye solution, and 0.01% perfume. As for the matter of solvents; all glass/mirror cleaners contain some sort of that chemical. For one thing it helps water evaporate quickly thus leaving streak free glass or other surfaces. There are numerous recipes both in print and online for "home made" glass cleaners using nothing more than water, ammonia, alcohol, liquid dish soap and perhaps white vinegar. | ||
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Post# 937682 , Reply# 3 5/11/2017 at 06:49 (2,540 days old) by mrboilwash (Munich,Germany) |
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"Drackett's first consumer product, Drano, was developed from lye, a corrosive cleaner made by leaching wood ashes."
I have my doubts about any big chemical player would still have used wood ashes in 1923. Way too expensive. Remember soap was an expensive luxury until the Leblanc Process was invented at the end of the 18th century to produce lye at a cheaper rate. As much as Wikipedia and lots of other sources out in the net have changed our world in a positive way almost all information found these days seems to better be taken with a grain of salt. | ||
| Post# 937693 , Reply# 4 5/11/2017 at 07:33 (2,540 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan) | ||
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See who gets it; The Greeks invented Windex. They invented everything. If you have a wart, spray Windex on it. Two clues; "It's a bundt" "You don't eat meet? Ok, I give you lamb." | ||
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Post# 937701 , Reply# 5 5/11/2017 at 08:09 (2,540 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains) |
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding Ranks right up there with the best of the best films.
I've done a fair amount of editing at Wikipedia through the years - am taking a break from it right now - and have to say, the site is handicapped by the 'not truth, but documentability governs' principle. Got into a fight with an idiot German who insisted silver reflects better than aluminium below ˜445nm and have had it up to here for the moment. As a jumping off point, Wikipedia is OK. As the pure 'gospel' on anything, gosh, there have been fights over whether water is 'wet'.
I'm not quite sure if we're all talking about the same thing in terms of wood ash and lye - it's KOH which you get from wood ash and it's not lye, it's caustic potash and NaOH, which we call 'lye' was already being made through the chloralkali process in the late 19th century. No wood ashes in that.
Anyhoo - thanks for the history, Laundress - it's cool.
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Post# 937863 , Reply# 6 5/11/2017 at 20:33 (2,540 days old) by d-jones (Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh Area)) |
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Thank you Launderess for the explanation! | ||
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Post# 937883 , Reply# 7 5/11/2017 at 21:23 (2,540 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine) |
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Nearly 60 years ago, my mother used Windex with old newspapers and cleaned our windows perfectly fine. Now, newspapers use soy based ink and Windex makes a mess since old newspapers used petroleum based ink and the new soy ink wont work to clean or absorb. Newspapers wont work any more to make windows perfectly perfect. Guess lots of paper towels will.
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| Post# 937959 , Reply# 8 5/12/2017 at 08:56 (2,539 days old) by Davey7 (Chicago) | ||
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I still use newspaper, no mess than other on my hands. Some of the color supplement or ad sections don't work well, but I think that's due to the more waxy* nature of the paper. *Which might actually be clay content. | ||
| Post# 938051 , Reply# 9 5/12/2017 at 16:56 (2,539 days old) by Laundromat (Hilo, Hawaii) | ||
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Post# 938069 , Reply# 10 5/12/2017 at 18:08 (2,539 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine) |
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Post# 938230 , Reply# 12 5/13/2017 at 06:48 (2,538 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Tried using newspaper just *once* for cleaning windows | ||
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Post# 938285 , Reply# 13 5/13/2017 at 12:51 (2,538 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine) |
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Post# 938293 , Reply# 14 5/13/2017 at 14:19 (2,538 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.) |
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Tim
we used to have a black Amana bottom freezer fridge and if you've ever owned a black appliance you know how they show every fingerprint. I used to clean it with Turtle Wax Spray Wax and that made it shine like a new penney and the wax coating kept it nice and clean making it easy to wipe off finger prints between applications of the spray wax. This may be just what you are looking for to replace the spray Jubilee that is no longer available. It has a pleasent scent too.
Eddie | ||
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Post# 938295 , Reply# 15 5/13/2017 at 14:38 (2,538 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine) |
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| Post# 938336 , Reply# 16 5/13/2017 at 18:00 (2,538 days old) by speedqueen (Metro-Detroit) | ||
Jubilee | ||
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Post# 938342 , Reply# 17 5/13/2017 at 18:13 (2,538 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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"New" Jubilee
There are a few threads on the product in the archives IIRC. Several members ordered bottles of the new Jubilee upon hearing it was reintroduced.
Upshot is the new maker (Natclo IIRC) reported back in response to a query that product was basically the same, however due to newer environmental laws it was reformulated to remove now banned substances (VOCs). Am guessing the original Jubilee as a cleaning wax had some sort of solvent or whatever that once was fine, but now restricted or banned. Same thing with Carbona, Energerine and the other once plentiful spot removers/dry cleaning fluids once sold in stores. What our mothers and grandmothers must have been inhaling all those years from just doing the housework. | ||
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Post# 938401 , Reply# 18 5/13/2017 at 23:45 (2,538 days old) by Supersuds (Knoxville, Tenn.) |
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Solvents
It's now known that exposure to solvents can have the same bad long-term effects on hearing as excessive noise.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO Supersuds's LINK | ||
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