Persil

Persil

Laundry Detergent Henkel's Persil logo
Product type	Self-activating laundry detergent
Owner	Henkel owner; Unilever by license.
Country	Germany (Henkel) & United Kingdom (Unilever)
Introduced	1907
Related brands	Wipp Dixan LeChat or Skip (France) Via (Sweden) Bailan (白蘭) (Taiwan)
Markets	Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands, Poland, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria; New Zealand; United Kingdom, Ireland; France; Spain, Romania, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Cyprus, Serbia, Greece, Albania, Iran, Italy, Portugal, United States and Canada.
Previous owners	Henkel & Cie
Website	www.henkel.com

Persil is a brand of laundry detergent made by Henkel; but which is now also licensed for manufacture, distribution, and marketing in several countries by Unilever. Henkel and Unilever both manufacture their own formulations. Introduced in 1907, Persil is notable because it was the first commercially available "self-activated" laundry detergent. The name, Persil, is derived from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and sodium silicate. It is Unilever's premium brand in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Persil is sold in many forms, with several "environment friendly" products.

The chore of doing the laundry began to change with the introduction of washing powders in the 1880s. These new products originally were simply pulverized soap. New cleaning product marketing successes, such as the 1890s introduction of Gold Dust Washing Powder (created by industrial chemist James Boyce for the N. K. Fairbank Company in the United States), proved that there was a ready market for better cleaning agents. Henkel & Cie, founded in Düsseldorf in 1876, decided to pursue this market, and on 6 June 1907 launched its newly developed, first of its kind product, Persil. The manufacturer had found a method to add sodium perborate—a bleaching agent—to its base washing agents (silicate), creating (what the marketing department called) a "self-activating powder" detergent. During the washing process, oxygenated perborate forms small bubbles, doing the "work of the washboard"—saving consumers time and rendering the historic method of "sun-bleaching" (by laying clothes out in the sun) unnecessary.

Invented in 1907, Persil is notable because it was the first commercially available "self-activated" laundry detergent. (A self activated detergent is one which contains bleach combined with the soap components.) The creation of Persil was a significant chemical breakthrough. The name, "Persil", is derived from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and silicate. However, the original name was deemed unsuitable as an international brand, as it is hard to pronounce in some languages; coincidentally, it is the French word for the herb, parsley.