Persil VS Skip-Similarities and differencies

[grwasher_expert]

I've noticed that british Persil packaging is very similar to our "Skip"(except bio/non bio distinction-almost all detergents are bio here).I searched it further and I found out that Unilever sells it's top of line detergent range with different names depending on the country(Skip/Persil/Omo/Via/Ala//Surf/Breeze),unlike P&G,where top of line laundry detergent is named Ariel in the whole europe.Unfortunately I've never came across a british Persil to check if it exactly the same with Skip or there are differences.Has anybody compared those 2 versions of unilever's top laundry product?Do they look and smell the same?Do they share the same formula?Or the only thing they have in common is the packaging and the logo design?

 

[launderess]

It all has to do with both Unilever and Henkel both owning rights to the brand name "Persil".

Lever Bros acquired the rights to the Persil brand name in 1931 (Henkel rather than build new plants in the UK sold rights to Persil to a soap maker there, who in turn was purchased by Lever Brothers). Since then the world has been divided between "British" (Unilever) Persil and the German (Henkel).

For various marketing reasons neither company uses Persil exclusively around the world.

Persil means "parsley" in French so for that and other reasons Henkel uses "Le Chat" as the name of their TOL detergent which is for all intents and purposes Persil under the bonnet. Unilever having the rights to Persil in Europe outside of Germany positions that detergent in France as being "natural" and or for sensitive skin such as containing Savon de Marseille, Aloe Vera, etc... However Unilever also sells Skip which as noted in OP is "Persil".

 

[grwasher_expert]

Henkel Persil is sold also in Greece,but it has absolutely no connection to unilever's Skip(english Persil),or german Persil(Ηenkel's TOL detergent is named Dixan).It is a range of special liquid detergents for sensitive and fine clothing(woolens,silk,blacks etc).I think that it is named Perwoll in Germany and other EU countries.

 

[liamy1]

As far...

As I can remember, Unilever's Skip "Active Clean" Liquid smells exactly like our Persil "small and mighty biological" liquid.

I have only had 1 Skip product (had/have all the Persil ones), so I can only go off this one, but if the liquid smells the same, would assume the rest of the line does.

 

[grwasher_expert]

Small and mighty liquid is called "Skip πανίσχυρο μικρό" here.I assume that all Skip liquids and capsules are EXACTLY the same with Persil ones.They are maybe manufactured in the same manufacturing plant.I was wondering if Skip powder is the same with Persil powder too.As I remember,until early '00s, Skip powder was made in Greece(only the powder,liquids were always imported).In 2002 the greek Unilever detergent plant shut down,so since then the powder is imported from France.Where is UK Persil powder manufactured?Does Unilever have any detergent plant in the UK or Persil products are imported from another EU country?

 

[spoodles]

Unilever's UK powders are manufactured at their factory in Warrington in the North West of England. This was the site of Crosfield's soap powder factory, the company that originally made UK Persil from 1909, until that part of their business was taken over by Unilever ten years later.

Liquids, capsules and fabric softeners are made at Port Sunlight (also in the North West and pretty much the birth place of Unilever) for most of Europe whether it's Persil, Skip, Omo, or whatever it may be called in other countries.

 

[liamy1]

Port Sunlight

Also, Unilever design all their detergents at Port Sunlight (for the world over). Outside Europe, detergents will be made local to their markets to cut transport costs, but are developed here in the UK.

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqEz0JtfelM

 

[iej]

Internationally it's OMO

Unilever actually refers to its top of the line detergents internally as Omo. A brand that while British in origin was abandoned in its home market in favour of Persil.

https://www.unilever.com/brands/our-brands/omo.html

It's sold by various names : Persil, Skip, Breeze, Ala, Wisk, Surf and Rinso

Surf is their other global brand as a second tier, scent oriented detergent.

https://www.unilever.com/brands/our-brands/surf.html

That's sold by a few names and is oddly Omo in France.

Henkel owns the Persil brand in most markets, the UK, Republic of Ireland, France and NZ seem to be the only places that Unilever has rights to the name.

Henkel bought old, very established brands in France (Le Chat), Wipp Express in Spain and they basically use those as their top of the line brands in those markers but the product is identical to German Persil.

 

[grwasher_expert]

Here,OMO is also sold as a secondary brand,with the butterfly logo similar to british Surf,like in France,while the worldwide OMO star-like logo is used for Skip.

 

[iej]

They're likely to be identical products. They just play around with different brands because they're established in particular markets.

Surf is generally repositioned as a scent focused product. They don't really try to compete with price point driven store brands anymore.

Although, Surf seems to only have one enzyme where as the TOL "splodge logo" range has a far superior, sophisticated cocktail of enzymes and should clean better as a result.

Australian Drive is a very different looking brand, but I would strongly suspect that the Front Loader versions are probably the TOL Omo/Skip/Persil formulation.

It's very wasteful to carry out R&D multiple times for the same product, so they simply use the same one everywhere even if the branding is different. They could possibly use a familiar local market scent that's a bit different but from what I've smelt, the UK, Irish and French stuff is the same product. They look and smell identical.

They've a high suds top loader formulation that's not sold in Europe but it's sold in NZ as Persil and in Australia as Drive. It's probably just different surfactants that foam up a lot more.

 

[aquacycle]

I'm using Skip Active Clean at the moment. In many markets, Skip is Unilever's top detergent. The powder is nothing like our Persil though. It smells more like Persil did in the UK 20 years ago - I love it!

 

[liamy1]

P&G

Proctor and Gamble do this too with their brands.

In USA - Tide is the top line detergent, Ariel is a lower priced detergent.

In Europe/ROW, in the markets where both Ariel and Tide appear, the reverse is true - Ariel is top line, and Tide the lower priced.

The same was true when the UK had Tide back in the 70's (Ariel TOL, Tide a budget detergent).

As PP said, it all comes down to the markets around the world, and what consumer segment a product is aimed at.

Pakistan P&G follow similar to UK - Ariel is TOL and their Tide is sold on the basis of achieving the whitest wash possible (like UK with the Daz brand, the Daz formulation is sold in Europe as Tide).

In USA, Dreft is aimed at mothers of babies (like our Fairy), whereas when the UK had Dreft it was aimed at washing delicates. Gain is sold on scent experience (like our Bold).

Linked an advert for UK Tide

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpZhJnCuu24

 

[iej]

There isn't really a "Europe/ ROW" market. The brands and formulations are adapted fairly carefully to each market. In a lot of developing world countries the majority of the products, for example, still have a very strong focus on hand washing where as that would be confined to specialist travel products and maybe wool care stuff in the European and North American markets.

Tide is only retained as a brand in a couple of markets Europe. P&G's billion dollar / Euro European brand is Ariel.

In most markets there a second tier P&G which had various names : Daz, Ariel Basic, Gama etc

You've their 3-in-1 / scent oriented brand to : Bold, Dash, Bolt etc . These usually aren't price pony oriented and are actually increasingly pushed as more indulgent - they're available in umpteen fragrances but they seem to not want to merge that with Ariel.

Also oddly in Belgium Dash is the premium TOL brand isn't always 3-in-1

In general you mess with household favorites at your peril. That's why they've generally not standardised everything.

 

[grwasher_expert]

In greece Ariel is TOL,just like in the rest of europe.Lenor detergent is the secondary brand that focuses on scent.About 15 years ago we had Bold too,but it was discontinued in 2004 as I said on another thread about discontinued products.P&G here also produces Essex which is a sold as a budget oriented brand.Tide is sold only as a hand-washing detergent.
Henkel follows a similar scheme with different TOL/secondary brand combinations depending on the country.For example in Greece and Cyprus the TOL product is named Dixan and it is equivalent to german Persil or french Le Chat and the secondary brand is called Neo-mat.In other countries such as Spain,Dixan is the secondary budget-oriented brand while TOL brand is Wipp Express.

liamy1
Are you sure that the commercial is not american?Because the guy is using a top-loader while in the UK most washers are front-loaders.

 

[liamy1]

Tide advert

GRWasher_expert

It is definitely a UK advert.

The machine is a Top Loading twin-tub, which is what the UK had in the 70s. Would say by mid-80s a lot of people (but not everyone) would have made the switch to a front loader). My own parents and grandparents had Twin tub machines until 1990.

Also, the other thing is the colour theme, US Tide is an Orange/Red/Yellow colour scheme (known as "Day-Glo" colours) and always has been.

UK Tide was a white and blue colour scheme.

 

[dixan]

GRWasher_expert,
UK Persil and Greek Skip are absolutely the same powder in different package. I used them both - they smell the same, look the same, ingredients are the same.
Skip powder is manufactured in Unilever's plant in Timișoara, Romania. Liquids are manufactured in UK or Italy, capsules - in UK. The softener - Coccolino/Cajoline/Comfort - Italy or Hungary.

Here in Bulgaria we have OMO Ultimate (TOL brand) which is the same as the Greek Skip Ultimate Klinex system. (Kinex is brand of bleach, known in other countries as Domestos.)

What I find curious in Greece is that you don't have "colour" detergents.

 

[grwasher_expert]

Back to '90s we did have "color" detergents.Besides regular Skip which had a blue packaging,there was also Skip color which had a green packaging.It was discontinued in the early '00s,while the packaging design was revamped and new variants of Skip made their appearance such as Aloe vera.Now we only have some special detergents for black clothes.Both Skip and Ariel produce special "color" detergents,but they are sold in only few countries and Greece isn't one of them.I don't really know which is the difference between a regular and a "color" detergent.Maybe the color one doesn't contain bleaching agents and it maybe contains some color protecting substances which prevent color fading.Recently i have seen in supermarkets a new version of Ariel powder that says "Whites+colors" on the box,and i think that it is a new formula suitable for mix washes(whites and coloreds in the same load)

 

[dixan]

No, in fact colour detergents are sold in most countries in Europe and only few don't have them - Greece, Spain, Portugal, France.
Colour powders don't contain oxygen bleach and some of them contain dye transfer inhibitors (since this year - only Henkel produce colour detergents with dye transfer inhibitors and only for certain markets).

This new Ariel doesn't contain bleach and it doesn't contain dye transfer inhibitors, but it contains photocatalytic bleach system (Zinc Phthalocyanine Sulphonate).

 

[grwasher_expert]

Actually,there is a new version of Skip color products that are sold in France but unfortunately not in Greece.What brands of color detergents are sold in Bulgaria?Does OMO have such a variant?