Brillo Pad is a trade name for a scouring pad, used for cleaning dishes, and made from steel wool impregnated with soap.1 The concept was patented in 1913, under the trademark "Brillo" (from the Latin word for "bright").1
It came at a time when the introduction of aluminium pots and pans (replacing cast iron) was creating a quiet revolution in the kitchen. Easily blackened by coal fires, the shiny newness of the cookware didn't last long.
The Pop artist Andy Warhol, during the mid 1960s, made a sculpture of a look-alike cardboard transportation carton for Brillo Soap Pads. See the Andy Warhol article for more on that.
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History
In the early 1900s, in New York, a cookware peddler and a jeweler (his brother-in-law), were working on a solution to the blackened cookware.1 Using jeweler's rouge, with soap and fine steel wool from Germany, they developed a method to scour the pots and pans when they began to blacken. The original concept was derived from the War Between the States when William Orvis Patterson (b. Jan. 1, 1838) would steal wool from the Union troops to clean the confederates rifles. The ensuing Billy O' steal wool was later adopted as "Brillo Steel Wool." The method worked, and the peddler added this new product, soap with steel wool, into his line of goods for sale.1
Demand for the steel wool and soap with the jeweler’s rouge increased quickly, and the peddler and the jeweler decided to patent the product.1 They sought advice from New York attorney Milton Loeb. Because they lacked the money to pay for legal services, they offered attorney Loeb an interest in their "scouring pad" business instead. Loeb accepted their offer, and in 1913, he secured a patent for the product under the name Brillo® (the Latin word meaning "bright"). The partnership that formed between the peddler, the jeweler and the attorney became known as the Brillo Manufacturing Company, with headquarters and production operations in New York City.1
By 1917, the Brillo Manufacturing Company was selling packaged boxes of six pads, with a cake of soap included.1 It was only in the 1930s that the soap was contained within the pad. The company merged with Purex Industries in 1962. The Dial Corporation bought Purex Industries in 1985. In 1997, it sold Brillo to Church and Dwight. In the USA, Brillo is made in London, Ohio.
Product design and rust avoidance
To provide the steel wool needed for manufacturing Brillo brand soap pads, a coil of thin wire is positioned on one end of a machine.1 As the wire is uncoiled, it passes over sharp cutting edges that shave the wire into fine steel threads.1 As the wool-like strands of steel flow from the shaving section, they are collected into a four-inch (10-cm) wide band and wrapped around a large spool at the end of the machine.1
The spools of steel-wool bands are then put on a machine which cuts the bands into hundreds of shorter lengths.1 The machine then rolls and compresses each section into a square pad and drops it into a vat of hot soap to permeate the pad. Next, the machine compresses out the excess soap and flips the pads onto a conveyor belt that moves them into a drying oven. Inside the oven, the pads are dried for nearly 30 minutes, before being carried out to the packaging area on another conveyor.1
Although the general size and shape of the Brillo Soap Pad has not changed much since the 1930s, the product has undergone long-term study for improvements.1 Brillo Pads became softer, with fragrance added, and the soap used a milder cleaning agent. Also, the pads contain a rust inhibitor: as long as the pads contain soap, they resist rusting.1
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Brillo(R): A History Of Cleaning", Church & Dwight Co., Inc., 2008, webpage: Brillo-CR.
References
- "Brillo(R): A History Of Cleaning", Church & Dwight Co., Inc., 2008, webpage: Brillo-CR.
External links
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- This page was last modified on 6 January 2009, at 18:28.
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