Church & Dwight
Church & Dwight is an American consumer goods company focusing on personal care, household products, and specialty products. The company was founded in 1846 and is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey. It is the parent company of well-known brands ...
. It was purchased from
Carter-Wallace
Carter-Wallace was a personal care company headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of Carter Products and Wallace Laboratories. The company has a research facility in Cranbury, New Jersey.
History
The company was form ...
in 2001 via a partnership with Kelso. Also in 2001 Nair introduced its line of men's products.
Nair is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsdepilatories that work by breaking the
disulfide bond
In biochemistry, a disulfide (or disulphide in British English) refers to a functional group with the structure . The linkage is also called an SS-bond or sometimes a disulfide bridge and is usually derived by the coupling of two thiol groups. In ...
s of the
keratin
Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroproteins''. Alpha-keratin (α-keratin) is a type of keratin found in vertebrates. It is the key structural material making up scales, hair, nails, feathers, ho ...
molecules in hair. This reduces the
tensile strength
Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...
of the keratin so greatly that the hair can be wiped away.
Nair's slogans include: ''"The Less That You Wear the less you have to fix your hair'', ''the More You Need Nair!"''; ''"Like Never Before"''; and ''"We wear short shorts, Nair for short shorts"''. The initial ad for the "short shorts" commercial won a
Clio
In Greek mythology, Clio ( , ; el, Κλειώ), also spelled Kleio, is the muse of history, or in a few mythological accounts, the muse of lyre playing.
Etymology
Clio's name is etymologically derived from the Greek root κλÎω/ÎºÎ»ÎµÎ¯Ï ...
. It was based on the 1958 song "
Short Shorts
"Short Shorts" is a song written and performed by Tom Austin, Bill Crandell, Bill Dalton, Russ Viers, and Bob Gaudio, members of The Royal Teens. It reached #2 on the U.S. R&B chart and #3 on the U.S. pop chart in 1958. The group originally rele ...
".
As of 2007, Nair had 25 products ranging from hair removal waxes to bleaches.
Active ingredients
Calcium hydroxide
Calcium hydroxide (traditionally called slaked lime) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca( OH)2. It is a colorless crystal or white powder and is produced when quicklime (calcium oxide) is mixed or slaked with water. It has m ...
is an active ingredient that chemically breaks down the hair for removal. Some formulations also contain potassium
thioglycolate
Thioglycolic acid (TGA) is the organic compound HSCH2CO2H. TGA is often called mercaptoacetic acid (MAA). It contains both a thiol (mercaptan) and carboxylic acid functional groups. It is a colorless liquid with a strongly unpleasant odor. TGA is ...
, which breaks down the disulfide bonds in the hair's keratin. The products often include softening agents, such as
mineral oil
Mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a mineral source, particularly a distillate of petroleum, as distinct from usually edible vegetable oils.
The name 'mineral oil' by itself is imprecise, ...