Calgon is a brand of

water softener Water softening is the removal of calcium, magnesium, and certain other metal cations in hard water. The resulting soft water requires less soap for the same cleaning effort, as soap is not wasted bonding with calcium ions. Soft water also extend ...

produced by

Reckitt Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, trading as Reckitt, is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, England. It is a producer of health, hygiene and nutrition products. The company was formed in March 1999 by the merge ...

Advertising

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, the Calgon advertisement

jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

has been the same popular one for almost 30 years. In Italy, Calgon was called ''Calfort'' from 1965 to early 2008. In the UK & Ireland, Calgon started advertising on TV in March 1985 and it was still uses today.

Criticism

In May 2011 a study by

Which? ''Which?'' is a United Kingdom brand name that promotes informed consumer choice in the purchase of goods and services by testing products, highlighting inferior products or services, raising awareness of consumer rights and offering independen ...

magazine demonstrated that there was no evidence to suggest that washing machines lasted longer when treated with Calgon under "normal" washing conditions. Calgon disputes this, however. In October 2011, Dutch

TROS Tros or TROS may refer to: * 18281 Tros, an asteroid * Transformer read-only storage, a type of read-only memory * TROS, a Dutch broadcasting union, originally an acronym for Televisie Radio Omroep Stichting * Tros (mythology), a figure in Greek ...

TV program ''Radar'' also concluded Calgon water softener is not necessary under "normal" washing conditions for Dutch customers.

References

Reckitt brands Cleaning products American brands {{brand-stub