Armor All is an American brand of car care products that is manufactured by American company Armored AutoGroup of Danbury, Connecticut, United States. The company markets the product line of sprays, gels, liquids, and wipes to clean, shine, and protect interior and exterior

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

surfaces. According to

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

documents, Armor All typically contains water, PDMS ( silicone),

diethylene glycol Diethylene glycol (DEG) is an organic compound with the formula (HOCH2CH2)2O. It is a colorless, practically odorless, and hygroscopic liquid with a sweetish taste. It is a four carbon dimer of ethylene glycol. It is miscible in water, alcohol, ...

glycerin Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...

, and various additional chemical compounds.

Background and history

1970s

The company that became Armor All was started in 1972 by entrepreneur and marketer Alan Rypinski,Armor All company history
from Funding Universe company histories when Rypinski purchased the marketing rights for the product ''Trid-on'' (a name derived from ''no dirt'' spelled backward) from inventor Joe Palcher who along with Byron F. Quivey in 1966 a wheelwright in Santa Ana, began selling the product on Main street at his shop. It quickly grew in popularity selling through periodicals like Hot Rod Magazine. Rypinski then patented, rebranded, and marketed ''Trid-on'' as ''Armor All''. The first test products were called RT-10 and GT-10. In 1979, Rypinski sold all of the rights to the Armor All brand name and protectant to the San Francisco-based consumer products company McKesson Corporation. RT-10

1980s

By 1987, Armor All's sales exceeded $100 million and company profits grew to $17 million, and in 1988 Armor All purchased Borden, Inc.'s car care products line, which included well-known name brands such as Rain Dance, Rally, and No. 7. This acquisition significantly broadened the company's product line, which increased the company's gains through 1989. By 1990, the company's net income dropped to less than $20 million, and then sharply worsened to less than $7 million in 1991.

1990s

Sales climbed from a 1990s low of $134 million in 1993 to $217 million in 1995 (fiscal year ended March 31, 1995), as net income climbed back toward $25 million. For the remainder of the decade, Armor All developed the Armor All brand name with a focus on international growth and the introduction of new products. Nielsen CDG UK was appointed car care distributor for Armor All products by Clorox UK. Nielsen CDG is part of the Convenience Distribution Group supplying petrol (gasoline) stations in the United Kingdom.

Present

In 2010,

Clorox The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American global manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2020 the Oakland, California based company had approximately 8,800 employees worldwide. Net sales ...

sold Armor All and

STP STP may refer to: Places * São Tomé and Príncipe (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, IOC country code, and FIFA country code STP) * St Pancras railway station, London St Pancras (Domestic) railway station (National Rail code STP) * St. Paul Downtown Air ...

Avista Capital Partners Avista Capital Partners is an American private equity firm headquartered in New York City focused on growth capital and leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies in the domestic healthcare sector. History The firm was founded in 2 ...

. It named the business Armored AutoGroup. In 2008, Armor All released a complete line of automotive vacuums. In April 2015, the Armored AutoGroup was acquired by

Spectrum Brands Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. is an American diversified company. Headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, it was established in 2005 as the successor company to Rayovac Corporation. It is one of the Fortune 500 companies, and among the largest of ...

Energizer Energizer Holdings, Inc. is an American manufacturer and one of the world's largest manufacturers of batteries, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. It produces batteries under the Energizer, Ray-O-Vac, Varta, and Eveready brand names, and for ...

bought the Spectrum Brands auto care business unit (including Armor All,

and A/C Pro) for $1.25 billion in cash and stock.

References

External links

Armor All homepage
*Armor All MSDS-Material Safety Data Sheets
Armored Autogroup dated after Jan. 2011

{{Energizer Companies based in Oakland, California Automotive companies of the United States Chemical companies of the United States Energizer Holdings Chemical companies established in 1972 1972 establishments in California