Sani-Flush was an American brand of crystal toilet bowl cleaner formerly produced by Reckitt Benckiser. Its main ingredient was sodium bisulfate; it also contained sodium carbonate as well as sodium lauryl sulfate, talc, sodium chloride, fragrance and dye.
When sodium bisulfate is mixed with water, a highly-corrosive acidic solution is produced, which dissolves accumulated minerals such as iron, magnesium and calcium from the bowl.[1]
The product has been discontinued because of environmental concerns; by 2013 its last original US trademark was cancelled or allowed to expire.[2]
History
Sani-Flush was introduced by the Hygienic Products Company of Chicago, Illinois in 1911 as a toilet bowl cleaner; since 1922 it had also been promoted[3] for flushing "rust, scale and sludge" from automobile radiators.[4] Advertisements from the 1920s onward depicted a housewife in an apron using the product to disinfect the bowl and remove odors; it "cleans closet bowls without scouring"[5] with "no drudgery whatsovever".[6]
The brand was sold to American Home Products; that company's subsidiary Boyle-Midway was sold to Reckitt & Colman (now Reckitt Benckiser) in 1990. The primary direct competitor to Sani-Flush was Vanish, a brand of toilet cleaning crystals marketed in the US by Drackett, which was later acquired by the SC Johnson Company.
Widely stocked in grocery and hardware stores, the product was a well-known household name and occasionally mentioned in children's jokes like "If Santa gets stuck in your chimney, use Santa Flush" and the apocryphal advertising slogan "Sani-Flush, Sani-Flush, cleans your teeth without a brush. All you do is pour it on; one, two, three, your teeth are gone."
See also
External links
- RB product profile with ingredient information and MSDS link
- Material Safety Data Sheet
- Sani-Flush Commercial, YouTube
- Dr Benway Operates: William S. Burroughs reads from Naked Lunch (includes filmed dramatization), YouTube
References
- Karen Logan. Clean House, Clean Planet Simon and Schuster, 1997-04-01, retrieved 2014-07-24^
- US trademark search on http://tmsearch.uspto.gov shows all marks expired or held by unrelated, non-manufacturing entities.^
- The Trade-mark Reporter 1952, retrieved 2014-07-24^