Little History Of Lever Bros./Unilever Brands

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It's a very long story that has been told here in group many, many times.

Long story short is original inventors of Persil (Henkel) rather than build new plants and all that goes with it in UK and other parts of Europe licensed name to Crosfields soap company.

Lever Bros. was Crosfields arch rival (literally with plants almost right next door) responsible for Sunlight, Lifebouy and other soaps. Sir Arthur Crosfield at some point was fed up with soap business and sold that part of his company to Lever Bros, this included "Persil".

Ever since the two companies, Henkel and Unilever (once Lever Bros.) have owned rights to Persil name. Over years each has attempted to buy out other, but it never takes.

As for who owns what Wiki has answers to that query:

"Unilever markets Persil in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America (except Mexico), Malaysia, Singapore, China, and New Zealand (but not Australia) since acquiring rights to the brand (one of its first such acquisitions) in 1931. (The "Small and Mighty" product line—a highly concentrated liquid detergent formulation—is found only in these markets.) Unilever also sells Persil in France. In this market, the brand focuses on "natural" ingredients and "skin-friendly" formulations.[10] Persil, Skip, Breeze, Surf, Ala and Rinso serve as the local version in these markets of Unilever's other international detergent brand Omo.[11]"

and:

"Henkel AG manufactures, distributes, and markets Persil in Germany, Poland and most of Europe, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United States."

"Henkel markets Persil under the name "Dixan" in Greece, Italy and Cyprus; and under the name "Wipp" in Spain and China. In Belgium, where both Henkel's Persil and Dixan can be found at major retailers, the Persil brand name is given priority by Henkel in its marketing. Henkel sells its Persil formulation in France under the name "Le Chat", as Unilever owns the licence to the Persil trademark in that country."

www.warringtonguardian.co.uk

Crosfields, Lever Brothers and soap wars: Warrington's history of soap-making

WITH Unilever having announced the potential closure of its Crosfields factory, centuries of soap-making in Warrington could be set to come to an…
www.warringtonguardian.co.uk www.warringtonguardian.co.uk
 
Furthermore...

Lever Bros. mainly sold soaps for laundry day in USA (Rinso and Lux) and were caught off guard when P&G introduced Tide detergent. Lever Bros. leadership believed P&G's laundry "detergent" was just a fad and would flop. To their dismay Tide was such a success it displaced not just P&G's soap products for wash day, but those offered by others including Lever Bros, in sales. For that feat of bad planning then CEO of Lever Bros. got the sack.

Ever since Lever Bros. battled it out with P&G for wash day product dominance of market, they never got further than second place. Lever Bros did have some success with Wisk liquid laundry detergent, but P&G's Tide and other products were always have have still been market leaders.

https://baltimorebrew.com/2014/02/1...ial-baltimore-succumbs-to-changing-economics/

In 2008 Unilever sold up laundry brand business to Vestar LLC.

https://www.reuters.com/article/bus...american-laundry-unit-to-vestar-idUSL8185468/

Vestar also owned Huish and it promptly merged that company with those acquired from Unilever to form Sun Products.

In 2018 Sun Products sold up to Henkel North American Consumer Goods who also own Dial company. The rest as they say is history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Products

It is rather ironic that Henkel's Persil was first real successful challenge to P&G's dominance in North American detergent market. People do wonder what might have been if Lever Bros. all those years ago pulled their socks up and managed to equal or beat Tide all those years ago.

Lever Bros./Unilever does or did know how, they are market leaders in UK and elsewhere with Persil. There Lever Bros. successfully make transition from soap based laundry product to synthetic detergent.
 
Lever Brothers did try.....

All detergent (with or without Bleach, Borax and Brighteners) did it's best to go up against Tide.









Early on All touted "controlled suds" which like Dash meant less froth which was a good thing for automatic washing machines.



It's worth noting that All is one of the legacy brands kept around by Henkel North America. Most famous one supposes for their allergen free line of detergents, but still.

Another legacy product "Wisk" was given the push and retired not long after Henkel North America launched Persil.

On both sides of pond Rinso was a huge seller for Lever Bros. as a soap product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNs5t0J99kQ

This extended largely throughout the Commonwealth nations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUun42GYu9Q

Sadly as noted Lever Bros. never could recapture same magic with various incarnations of Rinso as a detergent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBnJoncGGF0

Even addition of oxygen bleach didn't help Rinso sales all that much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UfcElMgKCg
 
Surf was a brand Lever Bros. just didn't know what to do with apparently.

Brand had been around for ages before becoming a detergent for whiffy laundry.









Then there was "Square Deal Surf" which was positioned as a value brand detergent.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdV-yXTrSCE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-UJdd4xabs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og8nFp3jFo4

In final big push Surf was relaunched as "new Surf" (also sold as Radion) as a detergent for whiffy laundry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNrrkCQXmYc
 
Sort of a confusing smozzle. Since Lever Bros (later Unilever) had been selling detergents over here in the US and Canada since forever I wonder why didn't they also sell a Persil since they had that license. Then Henkel moves in about 15 years ago and starts selling it here... am I making sense LOL.
 
Unilever/Lever Bros. did not have rights to Persil brand for North American market, Henkel did. See above

Henkel likely didn't bother with Persil for USA market due to top loading washing machines dominating market.

Henkel, Lever Bros like other laundry detergent makers long made peace with h-axis "automatic" washers for European market. Some still made products for semi-automatic or handwashing, but by and large those are niche products for Europe.

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?42599

Yes, Lever Bros. had All detergent which was low sudsing, and actually came about via Monsanto in aid of a detergent that would work in front loading washers, but that was all.

Remember when Miele, Asko and Creda first began selling washing machines in USA best dealers could do was import Persil (Henkel) from Germany. Miele USA only gave Henkel the push rather recently as they were launching their own laundry care products.

Henkel/Germany didn't mind so much apparently as Persil now could be sold by others and not just previous lock enjoyed by Miele North America.

P&G's first attempts at "HE" detergent was a failure. Stuff created so much froth it was nearly useless.

Fast forward to modern times with h-axis or "HE" washers coming to dominate North American market Henkel obviously believed it was time to flog their top rated Persil on these shores. This time it would be products developed specifically for North American market. To aid in that endeavor Henkel gobbled up first Dial then Sun laundry brands or products.
 
History of Persil In UK

As always it pays to wander about the archives....

www.automaticwasher.org

Persil History Thread - Info/pictures/videos appreciated!

Hi, as the title says, I am creating this thread about the history of Persil, the detergent brand, as I would like to know more about Persil and also about the history of the brand. I hope this thread also educates others as well. So please can you share anything you know about Persil and I...
www.automaticwasher.org www.automaticwasher.org
 
Well, Surf was initially Lever US's answer to P&G's Tide (note the maritime theme), but while it was a solid performing product, Lever didn't have (or use) the same marketing saturation advertising as P&G did with Tide so Surf never really gained that much ground. It ended its first run in the US around 1972 or so when all 'big three" manufacturers (P&G, Lever and Colgate Palmolive) got blindsided with all that "phosphate pollution" unpleasantness. More on that in a moment. At that time Surf was marketed here as "Cold Water Surf", suitable for washing in all temperatures - another attempt to go up against P&G's All Temperature Cheer and Colgate's Cold Power (Arctic Power to our Canadian friends). When the phosphate stuff started, Surf disappeared and soon after so did some of Lever's weaker offerings like Breeze, Silver Dust, "Fluffy All" (actually a "non concentrated" version of regular All), while Rinso with Color Bleach became just plain Rinso and became a bargain brand with absolutely no advertising behind it. Drive, Lever's 1968 or 1969 enzyme offering lingered for a while also, along with Cold Water All powder, but ultimately disappeared. Rinso, also a good performer really didn't have an identity. While Rinso Soap hung around up until the mid 1960's, Rinso Blue detergent was introduced in the early 50's, ostensibly to go up against P&G's Blue Cheer. Again not a lot of advertising so that brand never really made great progress, so in the mid 1960's it became "Sunshine Rinso". The big mistake there was that the powder was actually a light yellow (to mimic "sunshine"). However, regardless of the catchy ads (set to the tune of "You Are My Sunshine") housewives perceived (rightly or wrongly) that the yellowish powder wouldn't whiten as well, so that took care of that. It then became Rinso with Color Bleach (white with green crystals to mimic Oxydol), and the only commercial I recall for that was the clip shown in another post. The brand did hang on until the mid 1990s as a bargain brand and was actually sold for a while in the 90s "ultra concentrated" format.
Surf was re introduced to the US around 1985 and was more aggressively marketed than any of the past Lever offerings. It enjoyed some modest success and in the few tests run by Consumer Reports was ranked right up
there with Tide in terms of performance. Put P&G just kept flooding the market with different Tide variants and because of the history, Tide maintained a lock on the market. Even P&G itself began shedding some of its long standing brands and repositioning others. They focused on Tide and Gain while Dash became "Lemon" Dash, a bargain brand and they dropped Duz, Bonus and Oxydol. Bold and Cheer were allowed to drift aimlessly with Bold ultimately disappearing and Cheer sort of still exists - usually on the bottom shelf of WalMart and Target.
Actually, between the liquids and pods, even Walmart and Target shelves are almost deviod of any powders - save for a few Gain, Tide and Arm & Hammer offerings. I am also seeing in our local Latino supermarkets (mostly under the "Hispano" brand), liquid laundry soap and boxes of "Zote" soap flakes in both white and pink no less. Seems odd, I can't imagine how they actually perform given the limitations of washing with soap. Also seeing bars of Vel Rosita - from Colgate. But all that is for another day....
 
Oxydol always had oxygen bleach IIRC, even as a laundry soap powder. Perhaps to go up against products such as Persil (Henkel)?

Biz which began as an enzyme pre-soak also got oxygen bleaching system. IIRC one or both Oxydol and or Biz also got P&G's activated oxygen bleaching system. Then it all came to an end.

Once Tide became "Tide with Bleach" there simply wasn't a need for Oxydol nor Biz for that matter. TWB contained both enzymes and an activated oxygen bleaching system so one could use it to pre-soak.

Totally forgot about Drive, Lever Bros getting in on the enzyme laundry product bandwagon as it were. Don't recall if Drive came before or after P&G launched their enzyme product, Tide XK.

Probably best thing Lever Bros. had going for them detergent wise by 1960's or 1970's was liquid Wisk. Then along came Dynamo, Era and finally liquid Tide so that was that.
 
If I recall correctly, the initial enzyme offerings by the big three were Gain (P&G), Drive (Lever) and Punch (Colgate). All three of those were introduced around the same time. Then, very shortly after, P&G offered enzymes in Tide XK, Bold, Dash and Oxydol. Colgate followed the same timing with Fab, Ajax and Cold Power enzyme formulations. I expect that the three new detergent offerings were introduced first to create the buzz of a new brand and try to carve some market share. Lever was the only manufacturer that never expanded their enzyme offerings beyond the new Drive product, leaving All with its 3B's, Rinso with its Color Bleach, Silver Dust and Breeze with their "premiums" - glasses and towels, and Cold Water All and Surf as they were. P&G also left the existing formulations of Cheer, Duz and Bonus alone. About a year after the initial enzyme offerings, Colgate introduced a concentrated enzyme detergent - Burst and Purex launched its Brillo Enzyme Detergent. All that lasted only a year or two. Then there were reports of factory workers in the plants that produced these products suffering from skin rashes and respiratory ailments as a result of the exposure to the enzymes. And finally shortly after that- around 1971 or two, the phosphate business started. Enzymes became the enemy and all manufacturers had to scramble to reformulate their products to either eliminate phosphates altogether or meet the state/county reduced phosphate mandates. It was a little confusing since some counties had absolute bans and some had limitations. I know in our area, once the mainstream brands reappeared with their reformulations, depending on the grocery store chain, you might find the phosphated version or the non phosphated version of the same brand. The market also saw the influx of several new brands touting their environmental safety such as "Ecolo-G", P.F.D (Pollution Free Detergent), Country Save and other such noble names. Problem was that these new brands were terribly caustic and there were many reports of severe injuries to children who inadvertently ingested some of these. That was also the time when Arm & Hammer powder was introduced. Finally around that time, soap brands such as P&G's Duz, Colgate's Octagon and Purex's Instant Fels enjoyed a short boost in popularity as each tried to capitalize on their "natural" and phosphate free properties. Again, it lasted only a short time as the energy crisis neared and people were exhorted to use less energy - read that as washing in lower wash temps. You can imagine how well that worked. With the non phosphated detergents, there were issues of products not dissolving in cooler water leaving deposits on clothes and clogging lint filters (think GE Filter Flo. The issue was compounded with soap because it just isn't effective in cool water, hard water areas had their own issues and soap was just more difficult to rinse in cooler water.
 
Soap and hard water just aren't a good idea.

Unless one is willing to spend on whole house/plant water softening system or purchase packaged water softening agents, detergent is best.

P&G never intended at first for Tide to take over entire laundry product market, they only wanted to offer something to replace soap in hard water areas. Once Tide was perfected it simply began selling like hot cakes in both hard and soft water markets. So much so that for both domestic and commercial laundry Tide was pushing out P&G's once TOL soap products Oxydol and Chipso.

Chipso was discontinued sometime in 1950's IIRC. Oxydol as we've discussed lived on becoming a detergent.

 

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