Vanish is an American brand of toilet bowl cleaner produced by
S. C. Johnson
S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc. (commonly referred to as S. C. Johnson) is an American multinational, privately held manufacturer of household cleaning supplies and other consumer chemicals based in Racine, Wisconsin. In 2017, S. C. Jo ...
in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
. They obtained the brand through the purchase of The
Drackett
The Drackett Company was a leading company in the specialty chemicals business during the 20th century, responsible for such products as Windex glass cleaner, Vanish toilet bowl cleaner, Drāno drain opener, Behold furniture polish, Endust dust ...
Company in 1992.
The Vanish name has since accompanied S. C. Johnson's
Scrubbing Bubbles
Scrubbing Bubbles is the brand name of a bathroom cleaner produced by S. C. Johnson & Son. The product was originally named Dow Bathroom Cleaner after the Dow Chemical Company, its manufacturer at the time. After some consumer product lines we ...
brand as a sub-brand.
History
Drackett purchased the product from inventor
Judson Dunaway
S. Judson Dunaway (1890–1976), was an inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist to the community of Dover, New Hampshire.
Household products
Dunaway manufactured a number of household specialty chemicals, including Delete rust and stain remov ...
of
Dover, New Hampshire
Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,741 at the 2020 census, making it the largest city in the New Hampshire Seacoast region and the fifth largest municipality in the state. It is the county se ...
, who introduced Vanish in 1937 as a competitor to
Sani-Flush, a toilet bowl cleaner made since 1911. The products were substantially the same. The active ingredient in crystal bowl cleaners is
sodium bisulfate
Sodium bisulfate, also known as sodium hydrogen sulfate, is the sodium salt of the bisulfate anion, with the molecular formula NaHSO4. Sodium bisulfate is an acid salt formed by partial neutralization of sulfuric acid by an equivalent of sodium ...
(also known as sodium hydrogen sulfate).
Surfactant
Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or interfacial tension between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming ...
s are added. The last Sani-Flush patent had expired in 1932.
Most other household cleaners are
basic
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
(
alkaline
In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a base (chemistry), basic, ionic compound, ionic salt (chemistry), salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as ...
) in nature.
In 1947, Hygienic Products sued Judson Dunaway on grounds of trademark infringement and
unfair competition
Unfair may refer to:
* Double Taz and Double LeBron James in multiverses ''fair''; unfairness or injustice
* ''Unfair'' (drama), Japanese television series
* '' Unfair: The Movie''
* Unfair (song), a song by South Korean boy group EXO