"Regional" american detergents.......

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kenmoreguy89

kenmoreguy89

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Joined
Feb 23, 2010
Messages
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Location
Valenza Piemonte, Italy- Soon to be US immigrant.
It is a curiosity I wanted to get an answer:

Are there any laundry  detergents that are local to your state/area and can be find only there or vicinities?

 I spent much time of my time while in USA in KS also ME and MA and occasionally NY state NYC exactly....but as mentioned in my other thread I just managed to find once in Maine some detergents local of the place, at a Store specialized in Maine products called Renys....... do not remember the brands... some of these "local" detergents were also sold at local Dollar Tree.....and few shops around there.....

Now just wondering if there're any detergents that you know are produced and sold in your state/ area only or  anyway vicinities or even regions, not known nationwide......if yes what are their brands? Have you ever tried them?

This is just a curiosity I wanted to know.....
Thanks in advance.

 
 
Hi Freddy, I shop my local Reny's and also Marden's (both local Maine discount stores) regularily, as you never know what they are going to have in stock. But I have never noticed anything detergent wise that was made local there, as most of what they buy and sell at a big discount at retail are either from a fire/out of business sale or sometimes, off brands that may or not be good. Reny's does tend to stock as much local items as they can and better name brands. Both tend to have lots of good values but you never know what you are going to find at each one as their inventory changes so fast.
 
Tim: Yes, they change very often inventory at Renys, they also make special deals for limited time for certain detergents  or products that would not be indeed on  theit regular stock over usual time....

But, I managed to find those local detergents more than one time, they were in their regular stock.... I cannot remember the brands even if I'm trying to remind them from alot.....I just remember powders being in white paper boxes  with the brand  wrote yellow with light blue red and orange draws/strips,  one liquid came in a small plastic grey/metallic color bottle with violet and blue draws on the sticker and a  "strange" violet  flat cap like the ones in water bottles.....

Just do not know......
Jamie: Thanks,  Texise is just right the type of small company and brand  of detergent I mean't! Greensville SC right? Did a little research!  :D  Looks an unknown brand in other states..... you also mention White King....I know it was  a brand of  laundry soap, bars and flakes, successively developped in powder? But known nationwide if I'm correct?  I know this brand not being even born in those years nor living  in Ca.... never been there also, I may be wrong but looks  it was famous nationwide..... I can actually find many VTG ads sold all over the country on Ebay.....may be a case though...

BTW I know white King being an actual brand in Australia though!

It is particular the fact that in US there're not many  local detergents manufacturers and brands you might know being known in certain areas only, of course small factories I mean....
In Italy is so  usual to have local  small  factories that would produce detergents you can find in that area mostly and only......
I just recall of the FP products being sold here in Northern Italy only which company and factory is in Veneto region and sold in all the Po Valley  mostly and almost exclusively from Valle D'Aosta to Friuli.....or the Fax lavatrice detergent being produced and sold  mostly in the deep south exactly Campania  region (discovered it by a trip I had time ago Calabria region)......but like them there're many small  local companies that produce detergents sold mostly and almost exclusively in that  area and or regions.....

And Italy is such a little country......
This is interesting and particular to me....I'm sure there's a why in US small local companies of detegents looks not so usual, just cannot think of it....someone got any ideas of the why?

Thanks again all for commenting

 

[this post was last edited: 9/5/2012-15:27]
 
Regional soap makers were that way because of shipping expense. The classic example of that was makers of chlorine bleach...the economical shipping distance for chlorine bleach (94.75 percent water) was only about 90 miles. There was a famous court case where P&G wanted to buy Clorox (to get the number 1 chlorine bleach brand nationwide). The Federal Trade Commission said no...P&G couldn't leverage it's no 1 position in the soap/detergent/softener market to get the position in the bleach market too; they had to unwind the merger.

That said, there are many local soap companies which provide industrial/commercial soap and detergent products...growing up in St. Louis, there were at least a couple. GS Robins (my dad was in purchasing for a chemical company---bought janitorial supplies from them) which had a laundry detergent sold in 25 pound bags which my dad would bring home and my mom would re-sell to the neighbors...remember it very vaguely. Also there was a company which sold Borax-Sudz (Centraz) which is available to commercial accounts in and around St. Louis.

They mainly sold through the local department store (Famous-Barr) which featured their detergent in their notions department (the point was to just phone the store and have a 25/50/100 lb carton/barrel delivered...no one actually bought it at the department store). Famous-Barr had that type of merchandise (patent medicines/bandages/detergent/mothballs/sundries) in an ad every couple weeks in the Post-Dispatch...although the stores had small notions departments it was more a convenience thing...call the phone order department and put it on your Famous charge and have it delivered. Perhaps it was unusual for St. Louis (they had a couple of the big moth-ball companies, for instance, based there) but I think most leading department stores in the 50s and 60s did the same thing (for instance am pretty sure that Marshall Fields had a complete line of private-label home care goods)...
 
So if I did understand well manufacturers "preferred"  to make sell them  to regional/state  shops chains and start a distributinting trade with them which sometimes used to make of them their store brands, instead of paying to distribuite what would have been their own brand, as it was too expensive, right?
Well that would make sense  I was just thinking of it with the "italian" point of view on this thing as the space from town to town is much closer than in USA....so it would cost less to bring stuff within a certain region from city to city......

 
 
Kenmoreguy89 I have never tried it.  It is a good low price gut it is in large buckets or boxes and we get the Sears.  If they had a smaller box would get and try.  It has to be concentrated like the Sears Ultra.  I just do not know how well it works.  I know it moves fairly well.  AWG is a big comany and the Harp's Supermarket chain my wife works for uses them in accounting in their corpiorate office.  The are Harp'sPrice Cutter/Pric e Chopped and Food $ Less.  Have about 80 Stores here in Arkansas, Misouri and Oklahoma

 

Here is their web page.  Sometimes the weekly adds will have detergent.  They are award winners for thier cakes.

 

http://www.harpsfood.com/
 
All I was trying to say was that before shipping got easy and relatively cheap, and when media was more localized, it made sense to have smaller manufacturers at retail in more local areas (just as you were saying about brands/mfgrs from southern Italy...it's expensive to ship finished items to the "heel of the boot".
 
Jamie

Jamie sorry but I'm not sure I can understand well your speeches....

So you say that before was a common thing having local smaller manufacturers in local shop as shipping was easier and cheaper?  Right?
What you say it is logical that is more expensive to ship finished products to the "heel of the boot" or  more far away....that is the why they're sold only "locally" but that is logical.... this is not the question I wanted to get an answer.....

As you talk of before:

You say that  before was common  in USA to have local detergents sold in local stores,  so assuming that now is not so used I'm just wondering on what now has changed though, of course gas price, and and bigger stores of "standardized" chains actually having the same stock for everything, but cannot help but think to think about Italy where gas price is more than the  double if not even triple than USA and taxes are really alot.....so it still makes me wonder why in Italy it is  still used to have detergents  and brands made  and sold locally,  while in USA looks it is not

The only explanation I could give  to myself is the one above of the spaces.....of course stores also changed  and now many more national  "standardized" chains are everywhere, but small  local or local chains  "not national chains" ones still widely exist. Anyway this fact of the standardized chains is just a guess, but actually  national or not they could anyway decide to keep something more in the detergent stock and so a few local ones  than maybe another elesewhere I think .....

I'm confused at this point....

 
 
Lots of changes in the US over the last 50 years has led us to have more of a "single market" where national brands are king...1. media---become much more nationally focused (fewer local media....only a single newspaper per city 2. interstate highway system finished 3. fewer local retailers (now it's WalMart-Kroger-Target-KMart). Compare that to Europe: 1. still competitive media in a lot of places 2. transportation and energy expensive 3. still not as concentrated in the retail sector.
 
That is because europe is not structured like US that is a whole nation while europe is just a group of countries so different among them.....
For example carrefour "french chain" known in many states of europe actually carry local detergents in each country and different local brands of region and or areas of where the stores are , as for other national shops  chains of Italy in which you could find different local brands sold only in certain of these stores in those areas ...in my town we have just a few family owned stores, all the rest are national chains.....

Medias does  not make difference here in Italy local Media just disappeared  the same way, and BTW those local products does not even  ever get advertised.

So what you say would be a reason, but can't explain totally why they could not anyway carry local detergents.....at least from how I see things....

[this post was last edited: 9/6/2012-07:06]
 
Texize....

....Was widely sold in the South when I was a kid, but the brand was much more favored for its dishwashing liquid than any laundry product.

The dishwashing liquid was a very decent one for its era, but not up to today's performance standard. As I recently said in another thread, it couldn't cut grease off Tupperware and other plastics like today's stuff can. Plastics in the sink used to make me groan.
 
Sandy that is strange to hear a dishwashing  liquid cutting grease on everything but  no plastic......never experienced this with any...

As you talk about standards, were performing standards  of dishwashing liquids in the past less than today?

I only used few VTG liquid dishwashing in my life, all the rest were powders and they worked just fine.....so I ask this, thought they never changed that much over time, they're nothing but simple surfactans and <span id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">alkylbenzenesulfonate mostly.........this is curious...
</span></span>

 

Thanks for info about Texise brand!
 
Clorox-P&G

Actually, Proctor & Gamble bought Clorox in 1957 to complement its detergent lineup. But the Federal Trade Commission immediately fought the purchase on anti-trust grouds (fears that P&G would monopolize the chlorine bleach market). The issue wasn't resolved until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FTC's decision and ordered P&G to divest itself of Clorox. The whole affair scared P&G and the company essentially halted any mergers or takeovers of other firms for many years. And if I'm not mistaken, Clorox is just about the only national brand of LCB in the nation. So much for monopolies!
 
Thank you Mike for info, very interesting, I just cannot understand the preoccupation for P&G "monopolizing" the bleach market buying Clorox.....what would this have resulted? Why this would have been bad for citizens to ivolve anti trust?

They bought a company not all......

I actually never undertsand these anti trust things.......

 

 

Thanks
 
Freddy we get Always Save and Best Choice in the stores in Memphis I will look next time that I go to the store that carries them and if the box is not too big I will get you some I think that they have some powders but mostly liquids and a bucket that is a low price family size but I think that they are made by the Sun Company because it looks like a bucket detergent that I bought at Wal-Mart  under the Sun name I got it for the bucket to store my big boxes of Tide in but I may get it again if I find that it works well because the price was good and Sun detergent is made in America and here in Tennessee.

 

As for Clorox Bleach it use to not be the only brand of bleach for years as I remember we had Purex when I was a kid and store brands such as A&P that was made by Texise.Purex went into the low priced detergent business and did so well I guess that they stopped making Liquid Bleach. But now I do not think that Clorox makes it own bleach because on the back it states Mfg for the Clorox Co. and I just bought a bottle of Kroger Bleach that looks like that it was put in a old design Clorox bottle but it is a premium bleach and just as good as Clorox becasuse I buy both which one is less expensive also that is one thing that Aldi has that is good is their Tandil liquid Bleach.

 

I remember Texise Pink Lotion Dishwashing liquid it was good for the time and at the low price point 39 cents for 32 oz and 69 cents for 64 oz. but todays Dawn would eat its lunch.  

 

Freddy I think that Sun Does most of the private label or store brand detergents here it is on their website.Purex use too but do not know who much they do now.
 
Oh Carl yes I would love to get a paper box of Best choiche and always save powder detergent classic version if you can at the next swap we will do.....
Yes  bleach is bleach and they does not need anything special to make it, I mean is not a detergent that change ingredients  formulas etc...and  so that someone may find  be better  than another as for scent or cleaning.....sodium Hipoclorite is always sodium Hypoclorite, it can just change concentration.....this is what I think....
I knew once purex made bleach but now anymore but actually plenty good bleaches are around including store brands from what I know.....now  mexican cloralex in southern states near mexico is widely sold....cloralex number 1 bleach in mexico and relatively cheap in USA.
Here in Italy most known brand always been "Ace" P&G.....actually you can find a bleach called Acti from Henkel but it is a kind with soap and surfactans inside not plain bleach, kinda blue gel, Ace make a similar thing called "denso blu" that you can use for general cleaning without adding soap and anything....alot of minor and local makers followed  offering  and producing this type of bleach too.

I do use bleach sometimes for house cleaning, I never use it in the laundry unless I have to bleach some "washing errors" like when a red sock ends in the white load by mistake, it never happends.....
I usually buy the cheaper one I can find making sure that sodium Hypoclorite is at least < 5 % conc.

2 lts is 0,49 euro cent the less I can find....they  of course works just like Ace which is 2,30 Euros for 2 lts.....not a good deal for me, what you pay is the mark and the ads......

Yes I've read once they used to make dishwashing liquid detergents in pink,  it was used, for me and for people of my age if I think that watching at a pink dish soap would rather think about an hand soap, in Italy this color was  never been used for dishwashing detergent, even in the past as liquids started to come out dishwashing liquids always came in transparent color or green and or yellow and almost exclusively lemon scented.....here dishwashing liquid got out just late 60 almost 70s with their "boom" almost in the 80s.......before mostly powders dish detergents and one of the most known brand of liquid  and powders in the 70s and  early 80s  was named "Last"....the most famous powder dishwashing detergent in the 60s was named "Kop" and it's production lasted till the mid 90s during the  last  years if the 80s the most famous dishwashing  detergent became "svelto" brand (Unilever) that actually produced only liquids .......
Those powders dish detergents used to clean so marvelously if compared to any italian liquids they sell today even liquids were better, we got 30 packs of liquids and powders from a shop closed long time ago and that still had alot  of boxes of these powders (Brand were: lanza piatti and Kop and  both had Phosfates) and liquids (svelto)  in the warehouse.....they were sold at a flea market in  boxes lots of 10 packs each, by liquids and powders for a trifle...this was in 2006....but actually you could find dishwashing powders around   till 2010 on ebay and <span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="en"><span class="hps">"bankruptcy</span> <span class="hps">auctions</span></span>",  but I don't see them anymore around....
I find so strange to hear that in USA in the past dish liquids were "worse" than today, in Italy for what I know is exactly the opposite.....but I'm sure that modern dishwashing liquids in USA are way better than their italian counterparts newer and older.
Here is an interesting link of a website talking about the story of The Mira Lanza historical italian factory who entered in a partnership with ReckittBenckiser n 1984, now unfortunately completely owned by them....they kept some of the brands Mira Lanza used to produce and introduced new ones....

It is in italian though but nice to see pics......you could see their  products in the past years, they had Kop powder for floors and Kop  for dishes....the first products image  is from the 1969 when second one from 1973....you can see in the first pic of detergents  a white bottle of KOP, well that one was one of the first liqids forms of dishwashing detergents  entering in the market in those years....in the second image of 1973 selection you can also see a green bottle, well it was window cleaner you can find the white Kop bottle as well, unchanged....

[this post was last edited: 9/8/2012-15:51]

http://marcoeula.tripod.com/id13.html
 
This is not in-topic but interesting to know as I shared thi

In the last pic of the home of this website you can see a  laundry detegent display out of a shop......dated 1987 seems...
As you can see All was introduced in Italy and it lasted here till 1989 early 1990s, even Tide was a very famous brand  till  70s! That unfortunately though was pulled out of market since it was no longer bought and this for a simply stupid  misunderstanding of their  new "motto" they started to write on their packages in the mid 60s and early 70s:" Candeggia mentre lava"  translated is : "Bleaches as it washes"

In italian "candeggiare" is translated in english with bleaching that means to get white, while in Italian candeggiare is the only "whitening" operation you make with chlorine bleach, when actually "to get white" is :"sbiancare" infact oxy additives in Italian does not "candeggiare" they "sbiancano" they "get white", if you say "to bleach" and you translate it with candeggiare it means you bleach with chlorine.

Infact as long this motto came out on Tide packages people stopped buying it as they were convincted it had a new formula and it now contained chlorine bleach and so not being safe on their clothes, <span id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">to</span> <span class="hps">no avail</span> <span class="hps">denials of</span> <span class="hps">P</span> <span class="hps">& G about this matter....</span></span>

<span lang="en"><span class="hps">All this was aggravated they always claimed of Tide to provide the whitest whites, so the idea of  Chlorine bleach   it was even stronger on italian minds...italians just could not understand the percarbonate and oxy bleaching agents and that would have been safe not only for whites and fibers but also on colors....
</span></span>

<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">You know it was stupid......but when people get an idea is hard to pull it out of their minds....
</span></span>Pic of  italian Tide Logo 50s
<span lang="en"><span class="hps">
</span></span>

[this post was last edited: 9/8/2012-15:38]

http://marcoeula.tripod.com/id9.html
kenmoreguy89++9-8-2012-15-15-56.jpg
 

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