 | |
| Product type | Household cleaner |
|---|---|
| Owner | KIK Custom Products Inc. |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1933 |
| Previous owners | Procter & Gamble, Prestige Brands |
| Website | spicnspan |
Spic and Span is a brand of all-purpose household cleaner marketed by KIK Custom Products Inc. for home consumer use and by Procter & Gamble for professional (non-home-consumer) use.
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On June 15, 1926, Whistle Bottling Company of Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania, registered "Spic and Span" trademark No. 214,076 — washing and cleaning compound in crystal form with incidental water-softening properties.[citation needed]
The modern cleaner was invented by housewives Elizabeth "Bet" MacDonald and Naomi Stenglein in Saginaw, Michigan in 1933.[citation needed] Their formula included equal parts of ground-up glue, sodium carbonate, and trisodium phosphate; though trisodium phosphate is no longer part of the modern formula out of a concern for environmental damage from phosphates making their way into waterways.[citation needed] Stenglein observed that testing in her house made it spotless, or "spick and span". They took the k off "spick" and started selling the product in BROWN envelopes to local markets. From 1933 to 1944, both families helped run their "Spic and Span Products Company".[citation needed] On January 29, 1945, Procter & Gamble, a major international manufacturer of household and personal products based in Cincinnati, Ohio, bought Spic and Span for $1.9 million.[1] On August 30, 1949, Procter & Gamble registered the "Spic and Span" trademark (soluble cleaner, cleanser, and detergent).[citation needed]
The product was advertised in many soap operas, serving as the main sponsor of Search for Tomorrow for two decades.[citation needed]
The brand, along with Comet, was acquired by Prestige Brands in 2001.[2] In 2018, Prestige Brands sold the brand to KIK Custom Products Inc.[3][4] Procter & Gamble retained the rights to market the brand to the professional (non-home-consumer) market in the United States.[5]
The powdered form must be mixed in water to use. A liquid version is also available. Although considered all-purpose, it is "not recommended for carpets, upholstery, aluminum, glass, laundry, or mixing with bleach or ammonia" as written on product label.[citation needed]
The product was named from the older phrase "spick and span".
The phrase "span-new" meant as new as a freshly cut wood chip, such as those once used to make spoons. In a metaphor dating from at least 1300, something span-new was neat and unstained.[6]
Spic was added in the 16th century, as a "spick" (a spike or nail) was another metaphor for something neat and trim. The British phrase may have evolved from the Dutch spiksplinter nieuw, "spike-splinter new".[7] In 1665, Samuel Pepys used "spicke and span" in his famous diary. The "clean" sense appears to have arisen only recently.[8] The term is completely unrelated to the modern epithet spic.[6]