Chlorine Bleach

[jamiel]

Curious about what brands of Chlorine Bleach are available in areas around the country...generally in the past there were only Clorox plus one or two other brands...Purex had wide distribution but not nationwide. In Detroit it was Roman Cleanser. In St. Louis, Novel Wash. In Pittsburgh it was Austin 101. Anyway, curious to know what's still out there...here in Detroit you can sometimes still find Roman Cleanser. Also we get Canadian bleach (looks like Javex bottles) at Farmer Jack (A&P)

In the early 60s Clorox was purchased by P&G, but the Feds made them spin it off...thinking was that P&G was so dominant in laundry products except for bleach that for them to buy the dominant brand was not good because they could tie the purchase of bleach with the purchase of Tide etc. There was a good article in Consumer Reports in about 1967 about this...essentially saying that LCB was a cozy duopoly (Clorox, and a local brand) in most markets, and someone with the resources of P&G could enter the market themselves.

 

[aamassther]

Where do you buy Roman Cleanser, in the Detroit area? I haven't been able to find it for years. We still call bleach "Roman Cleanser". We always bought it instead of Clorox. It was cheaper and worked at least as well.

 

[toggleswitch]

..but it makes good drain-cleaner!

~always bought it instead of Clorox. It was cheaper and worked at least as well.

I've avoided el-cheapo bleaches, my thought is that it would eat clothing.

 

[jamiel]

I've seen Roman Cleanser at some of the Chaldean grocery stores and/or dollar stores around Ferndale/Royal Oak. They also have dryer sheets and liquid softener.

 

[petek]

Isn't bleach bleach no matter what the brand? After all it's just a chemical, sodium hypochlorite I believe and as such can't be any different. EXCEPT if one particular brand adds something to it such as a scent or "fabric guard" to the mix. BTW now that we're living in a land of mould and mildew in the shower, which never happened back in Calgary account the arid climate, I bought a spray bottle of ZEP mould and mildew shower cleanser the other day at HD..didn't read the ingredients but the smell gave it away,, bleach... sure enough all it is is bleach and nothing but bleach.. Heck I could have just put some Javex in a spray bottle and saved myself a few bucks.

 

[neptunebob]

Pittsburgh still has Austin's bleach, here is a commercial with a Calypso washer in the background.

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www.jamesaustin.com

 

[jamiel]

LCB is LCB...as long as it's the same dilution (5.25% (old dilution) versus 6.0. Yeah, yeah, Clorox at one time advertised that they "customized" the formula for the "conditions in your area"...all that meant is that they filtered the (tap) H20 used to dilute the sodium hypochlorite.

Issue is that I use LCB for sanitization more than laundry...I've got a whole house water filter/softener system that needs to be flushed periodically with a LCB solution. The reverse osmosis membranes, I assume, are sensitive to chlorine so you want to use as little as possible.

Most of the house brands of regular-scent LCB (scented or specialty have never had it) have seemed to drop their EPA registration. I've been looking...I can't find any dollar-store bleach with the registration . America's Choice (A&P) from Canada---no registration. I did find it at Meijer (Jump--house brand made in Canada) has registration, but was only 10 cents cheaper than Clorox and I had a coupon...ended up buying Clorox.

Similarly, PineSol (another Clorox product...)has been dumbed down...remember the old ads.."it clean and disinfects....and deodorizes too...for you"...no longer is PineSol a registered disinfectant.

My mom used Lysol in the brown bottle for years and years for bathroom cleaning until Dow Bathroom Cleaner came out (we always would get a gift package of Dow products b/c my dad bought chemicals from them)...Dow Bathroom Cleaner, Oven Cleaner, Ziploc Bags...etc etc.

 

[peterh770]

I have a friend from Minnesota that calls LCB by the regional name "Hylex".

 

[sudsman]

Here in the laundry

I still have several colored girls that call it Pew Rex

 

[jamiel]

In googling some of the brands of LCB, it's interesting that the state extension services re-package some of the federal government's homemaking brochures for local use and where the Feds speak of "liquid chlorine bleach 5.25%" the local extension services use name brands...wildest document I saw was a Hmong language brochure on home sanitation done by state of Minnesota which used "Hilex" as the brand.

Purex was the only other multi-region brand (other than Clorox)...think I saw somewhere it was a west coast brand that got bought by Fels (from Philadelphia) and introduced on the east coast...then bought by Armour Dial and spun off the LCB business.