Product type | Laundry detergent |
---|---|
Owner | Summit Brands |
Introduced | 1893 |
Markets | United States and Canada |
Previous owners | Fels & Company (1893-1964), Purex Industries, Inc. (1964-1985), The Dial Corporation (1985-2003), Henkel (2003-2022) |
Website | https://summitbrands.com/ |
Fels-Naptha is an American brand of laundry soap manufactured by Summit Brands. The soap was originally created in 1893 by Fels and Company.
It originally included the ingredient naphtha, effective for cleaning laundry and urushiol, an oil contained in poison ivy.
The original Fels-Naptha was developed by Fels & Company of Philadelphia around 1893. Its predecessor Fels & Company, was established by Lazarus Fels and son Abraham in 1866 in Baltimore, Maryland, but unexpectedly failed after some period of success. [1] The Fels family moved to Philadelphia, where another of Lazarus' sons, Joseph, started the new firm and incorporated in 1914. Joseph's younger brother Samuel Simeon Fels was the new company's first president and held that position until he died in 1950. [2]
In the early 20th century, the company prospered based on sales of Fels-Naptha. Both Joseph and Samuel used their new wealth for philanthropy.[ citation needed ]
In 1964, the company was sold to Purex Corporation for $5 million. [3]
The Greyhound Corporation acquired the consumer products business of Purex (which included Fels-Naptha) in 1985 and was combined with Greyhound's Armour-Dial division, forming The Dial Corporation. [4] In December 2003, Dial was sold to Henkel for $2.9 billion. [5]
In September 2022, Summit Brands acquired Fels-Naptha from Henkel. [6]
The soap comes packaged in paper similar to bar body soap and is most often found in the laundry section of a supermarket or grocery store. It is intended for the pre-treatment of stains by rubbing the dampened product on a soiled area prior to laundering. The manufacturer claims it to be most effective in removing chocolate, baby formula, perspiration, and make-up. [7]
It was often used as a home remedy in the treatment of contact dermatitis caused by exposure to poison ivy, poison oak, and other oil-based organic skin-irritants where they have touched the skin but not yet inflamed the area. [8] When the soap contained its namesake naphtha, washing the skin directly with the soap helped remove urushiol, the allergen associated with poison ivy. As with other strong detergents, the revised formulation retains this capability.
According to the manufacturer, about 1/2 of a bar of Fels-Naptha grated and added to a wash cycle helps eliminate residual stains. [7]
Fels-Naptha is also a common ingredient in DIY laundry detergent recipes.
Fels-Naptha, when combined with Neatsfoot oil, is commonly used in a primitive method of tanning animal skins. [9]
In its 2007 material safety data sheet, [10] Dial Corp. states that Fels-Naptha can irritate the eyes and, with prolonged exposure, the skin. [11]
Fels-Naptha once contained naphtha, a skin and eye irritant. According to the ingredients list on the Fels-Naptha website, it is no longer included in the soap. [7] Instead, it now contains terpene hydrocarbons. [10]
Naphtha is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture. Generally, it is a fraction of crude oil, but it can also be produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the fractional distillation of coal tar and peat. In some industries and regions, the name naphtha refers to crude oil or refined petroleum products such as kerosene or diesel fuel.
Urushiol is an oily mixture of organic compounds with allergenic properties found in plants of the family Anacardiaceae, especially Toxicodendronspp., Comocladia spp. (maidenplums), Metopium spp. (poisonwood), and also in parts of the mango tree as well as the fruit of the cashew tree.
White spirit (AU, UK and Ireland) or mineral spirits (US, Canada), also known as mineral turpentine (AU/NZ), turpentine substitute, and petroleum spirits, is a petroleum-derived clear liquid used as a common organic solvent in painting. There are also terms for specific kinds of white spirit, including Stoddard solvent and solvent naphtha (petroleum). White spirit is often used as a paint thinner, or as a component thereof, though paint thinner is a broader category of solvent. Odorless mineral spirits (OMS) have been refined to remove the more toxic aromatic compounds, and are recommended for applications such as oil painting.
Persil is a German brand of laundry detergent manufactured and marketed by Henkel around the world except in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America, China, Australia and New Zealand, where it is manufactured and marketed by Unilever. Persil was introduced in 1907 by Henkel. It was the first commercially available laundry detergent that combined bleach with the detergent. The name was derived from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and sodium silicate.
Armour & Company was an American company and was one of the five leading firms in the meat packing industry. It was founded in Chicago, in 1867, by the Armour brothers led by Philip Danforth Armour. By 1880, the company had become Chicago's most important business and had helped make Chicago and its Union Stock Yards the center of America's meatpacking industry. During the same period, its facility in Omaha, Nebraska, boomed, making the city's meatpacking industry the largest in the nation by 1959. In connection with its meatpacking operations, the company also ventured into pharmaceuticals and soap manufacturing, introducing Dial soap in 1948.
Sunlight is a brand of laundry soap, laundry detergent and dishwashing detergent manufactured and marketed around the world by Unilever, except in the United States and Canada, where it has been owned by Sun Products since 2010.
Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Henkel, is a German multinational chemical and consumer goods company headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis is a type of allergic contact dermatitis caused by the oil urushiol found in various plants, most notably sumac family species of the genus Toxicodendron: poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, and the Chinese lacquer tree. The name is derived from the Japanese word for the sap of the Chinese lacquer tree, urushi. Other plants in the sumac family also contain urushiol, as do unrelated plants such as Ginkgo biloba.
Henkel Corporation, doing business as Henkel North American Consumer Goods and formerly The Dial Corporation, is an American company based in Stamford, Connecticut. It is a manufacturer of personal care and household cleaning products and is a subsidiary of multinational company Henkel AG & Co. KGaA.
Dishwashing liquid, also known as dishwashing soap, dish detergent, and dish soap is a detergent used to assist in dishwashing. It is usually a highly-foaming mixture of surfactants with low skin irritation, and is primarily used for hand washing of glasses, plates, cutlery, and cooking utensils in a sink or bowl. In addition to its primary use, dishwashing liquid also has various informal applications, such as for creating bubbles, clothes washing and cleaning oil-affected birds.
Dial is an American brand of soap, body wash and hand sanitizer manufactured by Henkel North American Consumer Goods, the American subsidiary of Henkel AG & Co. KGaA. It was the world's first antibacterial soap.
Purex is a brand of laundry detergent and laundry-related products manufactured by Henkel North American Consumer Goods and marketed in the United States and Canada. Purex is one of the most widely used laundry detergents in North America. Its original product, Purex Bleach, was a major competitor to Clorox bleach. The brand name is also used for a line of in-wash "fragrance booster" products called Purex Crystals. The Purex Crystals brand was originally launched as an in-wash fabric softener product.
Tecnu is an over-the-counter skin cleanser manufactured by Tec Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company based in Albany, Oregon. It is intended for use by humans and furry pets after topical exposure to urushiol, the active ingredient in poison oak, poison ivy, and poison sumac. Tecnu is made from deodorized mineral spirits, water, propylene glycol, octylphenoxy-polythoxethanol, mixed fatty acid soap, and fragrance.
The Sun Products Corporation was a United States-based manufacturer of laundry detergent, fabric softeners, and other household cleaning products. With annual sales of $2.0 billion, the company's brands included All, Wisk (discontinued), Snuggle, Sun, Surf, and Sunlight. Sun Products holds the second largest market share in the $10 billion North American fabric care market as of 2010. In addition, Sun Products was the manufacturing partner for many retailer brand laundry and dish products in North America.
Joseph Fels was an American soap manufacturer, millionaire, Georgist and philanthropist.
Purex Crystals are a crystal-form in-wash "fragrance booster" manufactured by Henkel and marketed in the United States and Canada.
Zote is a Mexican company primarily known for its laundry soap. The soap is popular for hand washing clothes and pretreating oily stains.
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