When Persil tried to become too good

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liamy1

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Don't know if this has been done, I came across the below video on YouTube if anyone is interested?

 
I remember that. Our German consumer magazine, interestingly, also had a big picture of a clothes line with shredded laundry on it as the opener of the test. Indeed, the magazine related the damage to some sort of bleach accelerator. Some time later, Fairy dishwasher detergent was tested, containing the same booster and it cleaned tea and coffee stains better than any other detergent - with no damage to the dishes.
 
Cool

Cool chestermike, I didn't think anyone on here would be in the video :).

Funny you mention that logixx, my mum was once looking for something to get spaghetti Bologna out of my nephews clothes - he got covered in it.

She thought to her self, why not try a dishwasher tab, since the primary use of a DW detergent is to clean food? Anyway, it worked a charm - not a trace of it left. It did not harm the clothing; this was a one off though, don't know what would happen with long term use?
 
Henkel Persil

Hi Tom,

As far a I know, no this issue was mainly only a UK thing - and possibly in other markets where Unilever/Lever Persil was sold.

Someone may know better than me though.

The only thing with the Persil manufacture is that in Germany/other markets Henkel own the Persil brand name, whereas in the UK/and a few other markets Unilever own the brand name.

Not sure why this is exactly, I assume the reason is because Henkel don't have ANY laundry detergents on the UK market.

In the UK I think it's only Persil that works this way, I think all the other detergents we have are manufactured by the same company as for the rest of Europe.

http://
 
Not bad enough the machinery gets cross-badged so you can't tell what you're buying contains the worst of everything. But outstanding formulations like Henkel get cross-badged to hosebags like Unilever. [HUGE eyeroll]
 
It makes me laugh so much the standpoint of the old man with the blue shirt.....
All deteregents necesserily damage laundry, I could fully disagree with him as i still have the same VTG and modern linens from more than twenty-somethings still looking like new, used and washed regulrlarly, my granma also has the same linens she used to get when she got married, still like new... Never Heard of a detergent damaging laundry in all my life until I heard of Persil....
Garments are subject to wearing this due to frequent use and some more than others suffer this, either because made of crappy materials than others or because you use them alot and more than others, this is the primar cause of wearing, not certainly the washing...and detergents until different proof are rather formulated and tested to prevent this to happen in full.
We have pushed cleaning credentials a little bit too far than pheraps we thought we had done, And the result of damage was greater than one that pheraps we thought we were responsible for...
to me sounds like:
You tried to make an improvement to a product, this as an attempt to keep up with others, all this in a desperate rush and hurry without the due attentions, negligently caring only of clean t and not caring of anything else, what was in full an hazardous thing to do, it could have gone well as bad, you had not the total idea or doubt of this, you ignored it, you've been silly, unfortunately it gone bad and you ended up marketing a fabric damaging detergent, and you are fully responsible for this as for the million clothes your detergent damaged, this when others detergents of course didn't and NEVER did... No matter of greater or lesser....as you prefer to think..
Take consciusness of responsability...and address it to the company all....avoid ."pheraps"....
That's it....
 
The other aside to this is...

That manufacturers had in accordance with new regulations had severly reduced the water levels in many new fl machines, (think rainwave) which when the new powder was overdosed in a new water reduced machine - well it didnt help the cause and the rest is history!!

But all in all, We Still Love Our PERSIL......and its still here, and before one utterance of "shock horror, UK housewifes up in arms about the new bio - well we like the original formulation ta very much" the housewifes spoke, the company listened...any other campaign in a soap war one can utter that people power got the job done?

Oh Gary - he`s ya scrub nurse so watch out!!

chestermikeuk++2-8-2014-06-57-43.jpg
 
People power got the job done....well as it should be, and that's a nice story with an happy and fair ending... everyone makes errors, is how you make up to them that makes the difference......and for that you can be forgiven, but also admired....we're humans.
In all honesty I do not know how Henkel or P&G would have handled the thing if it was happened to them....
But to me seems like that who got interwieved didn't admit it in full, and still trying to make up excuses and stories, and especially to theirself in first person, which is understandable as it could have meant the end of a brand, a fail of personal....so whose involved still have a great weight of guilt in their coscience to deal with..
But as you say, Unilver Persil is still there and loved as if nothing or almost nothing has happened....
I
This because british people have understand and forgiven...
Everyone makes errors, both in formulas and or advertising champaign..
I recall Tide in Italy, that ended in a silly way because of a bad advertising motto on packages, it was most famous brand in 50s and 60s, when they decided to change their motto to : bleaches and washes....from the previous: it washes so white that you can see the difference " lava cosí bianco che si vede la differenza" . In italiann to bleach means to bleach using chlorine only, while to bleach with else not of chlorine composition is called "whiten" "sbiancare".. To bleach "candeggiare" is the operation involving chlorine only...
And because of this people started thinking it changed and then contained chlorine and stopped buying it because of it.... To no avail the attempts to show and proove opposite, when people gets an idea is hard to take it off...especially in the 60s when many only could read a package and media as tv and or radios were still not common for a massive and very costly operation to inform of how things really were and to clear it up...
So they let the brand die...in a silly way...also because .in the meantime they started selling Dash, that soon became almost as famous as it was Tide before..even though with a big rivalry with Dixan (henkel persil), if Tide lasted Here I think it would have outdid Dixan even more than dash did, this because people were already used to Tide and loved it..it was the first detergent that came out on the other hand...
[this post was last edited: 2/8/2014-09:08]
 
Henkel Germany Persil and Unilever Of Same

Henkel rather than trying to expand in the UK licensed rights for Persil to Crosfields, the dominate soap maker for that market at that time.

Crosfields was acquired by Lever Bros (soon to be Unilever) around the 1930's and since then you have the world of two Persil. That of the English (Unilever) and German (Henkel). Between the two they have pretty much carved up the world so that one can find either British or German Henkel (sometimes both) in markets all over the world. Maddening thing is that depending upon what country "Persil" by Henkel will be "Skip", "Dixan", or Le Chat...

It is all rather confusing but suppose if one remains in one country it does not take long to sort things out.

Over the years Henkel AG and Unilever have each tried to purchase the other out for the brand name Persil, but neither side will part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persil
 
Hoover Demise

This series I think also covered the demise of Hoover in this country after the free flights fiasco............heartbreaking :-(
 
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