Sani Flush

Sani-Flush was an American brand of crystal toilet bowl cleaner formerly produced by Reckitt Benckiser. Its main ingredient was sodium bisulfate; it also contained sodium carbonate as well as sodium lauryl sulfate, talc, sodium chloride, fragrance and dye.

When sodium bisulfate is mixed with water, a highly-corrosive acidic solution is produced, which dissolves accumulated minerals such as iron, magnesium and calcium from the bowl.[1]

Due to environmental concerns, the product has been discontinued; by 2013 its last original US trademark was cancelled or allowed to expire.[2]

History

Sani-Flush was introduced by the Hygienic Products Company of Chicago, Illinois in 1911 as a toilet bowl cleaner; since 1922 it had also been promoted[3] for flushing "rust, scale and sludge" from automobile radiators.[4] Advertisements from the 1920s onward depicted a housewife in an apron using the product to disinfect the bowl and remove odours; it "cleans closet bowls without scouring"[5] with "no drudgery whatsovever".[6]

The brand was sold to American Home Products; that company's subsidiary Boyle-Midway was sold to Reckitt & Colman (now Reckitt Benckiser) in 1990. The primary direct competitor to Sani-Flush was Vanish, a brand of toilet cleaning crystals marketed in the US by Drackett, which was later acquired by the SC Johnson Company.

Widely stocked in grocery and hardware stores, the product was a well-known household name and occasionally mentioned in children's jokes like "If Santa gets stuck in your chimney, use Santa Flush" and the apocryphal advertising slogan "Sani-Flush, Sani-Flush, cleans your teeth without a brush. All you do is pour it on; one, two, three, your teeth are gone."[7] Mixing Sani-Flush (an acid) with a chlorine bleach (hypochlorite) like Drāno or Liquid-Plumr can be deadly as it releases the poisonous gas chlorine.[8] On April 8, 1964 a Winn-Dixie food store in St. Petersburg, Florida was evacuated and eleven people hospitalized.[9]

Sani-Flush is mentioned several times in William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, where the product is used to "cut" (dilute) cocaine or where it is substituted for morphine by a pharmacist.[10]

The original product quietly disappeared from store shelves circa-2009; the US trademark was cancelled in 2013. Unlike rival Vanish, whose mark now serves to market other formats of toilet cleaner from the same manufacturer, the Sani-Flush name in the US was simply abandoned. "Sani-Flush"[11] and "Sani-Flush Puck"[12] retain their registered trademark status in Canada, but refer to a different toilet cleaner.[13]

See also

References
  1. Karen Logan (1997-04-01). Clean House, Clean Planet. ISBN 9780671535957. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  2. US trademark search on http://tmsearch.uspto.gov shows all marks expired or held by unrelated, non-manufacturing entities.
  3. The Trade-mark Reporter. 1952. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  4. "Popular Mechanics advertisement (run during much of the 1930s and 1940s) for Sani-Flush as automotive radiator cleaner". Hearst Magazines. September 1938. Retrieved 2014-07-24. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  5. Jessamyn Neuhaus (2011-11-08). Housework and Housewives in American Advertising: Married to the Mop. ISBN 9780230337978. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  6. Daniel Delis Hill (2002-01-01). Advertising to the American Woman, 1900-1999. ISBN 9780814208908. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  7. R. Gerald Alvey (1989). Kentucky Folklore. ISBN 0813109027. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  8. In Goins v. Clorox Company, (926 F2d 559), the estate of an end user who poured Drano (by Bristol-Myers), Liquid Plumr (by Clorox) and Sani-Flush (by Boyle-Midway) into the same clogged drain unsuccessfully attempted to sue Clorox Corporation, Drackett, and Boyle-Midway, but failed to prove the warnings on the products were inadequate.
  9. 11 persons overcome by toxic gas fumes, St. Petersburg Times - Apr 9, 1964
  10. Burroughs, William S. "Dr Benway Operates". Naked Lunch. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
  11. http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/app/opic-cipo/trdmrks/srch/vwTrdmrk.do?lang=eng&fileNumber=0076212
  12. http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/app/opic-cipo/trdmrks/srch/vwTrdmrk.do?lang=eng&fileNumber=0574636
  13. SANI-FLUSH® Auto - Regular with Lysol® retains the historic trademark in Canada, but differs in chemical composition and application.
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