Brillo is a

trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

for a

scouring pad A scouring pad or scourer is a small pad of metal or plastic mesh used for wiktionary:scour, scouring a surface. Some scouring pads have one side made of a soft sponge-like material and the other is the aforementioned mesh. History The scouri ...

, used for

cleaning Cleaning is the process of removing unwanted substances, such as dirt, infectious agents, and other impurities, from an object or environment. Cleaning is often performed for beauty, aesthetic, hygiene, hygienic, Function (engineering), function ...

dishes, and made from steel wool filled with

soap Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

. The concept was patented in 1913, at a time when

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

pots and pans were replacing

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

in the kitchen; the new cookware blackened easily. The company's website states the name Brillo is from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word for "bright", although no such word exists in Latin. In Spanish the word ''brillo'' means the noun "shine"; however, German, Italian, French, and English do have words for "shine" or "bright" beginning with ''brill-'' deriving from Latin words for

beryl Beryl ( ) is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium Silicate minerals#Cyclosilicates, silicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2(SiO3)6. Well-known varieties of beryl include emerald and Aquamarine (gem), aquamarine. Naturally occurring Hex ...

History

In the early 1900s, in New York, an unnamed cookware peddler and his brother-in-law, an unnamed jeweller, were working on a solution to clean blackened cookware. Using jewellers' rouge, with soap and fine steel wool from Germany, they developed a method to scour the backsides of cooking utensils when they began to blacken. The method worked and the peddler added this new product, soap with steel wool, into his line of goods for sale. Demand for the steel wool, copper spun and soap with jewellers' rouge increased quickly. The peddler and the jeweller decided to patent the product. Because they lacked the money to pay for legal services, they offered New York attorney Milton Loeb an interest in their business. Loeb accepted and in 1913, he secured a patent for the product under the name Brillo. The partnership formed between the peddler, the jeweller and the attorney became known as the Brillo Manufacturing Company, with headquarters and production operations in New York City. By 1917, the company was selling packaged boxes of six pads, with a cake of soap included. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, it helped with needed efforts of field operations. In 1921, the company moved its production facility to London, Ohio. It was only in the 1930s that soap was contained within the pad. The company merged with Purex Industries in 1962. The Dial Corporation acquired Purex Industries in 1985.

Church and Dwight Church & Dwight Co., Inc. is an American consumer goods company focusing on personal care, household products, and specialty products. The company was founded in 1847 and is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey. It is the parent company of well-kno ...

acquired the Brillo business from Dial in 1997. In 2010, Armaly Brands of Walled Lake, Michigan, primarily a manufacturer of

sponges Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and ar ...

, purchased the Brillo business from Church & Dwight. At that time there were about 50 employees, down from a high of about 150 in the 1990s.

Production

Brillo is manufactured in London, Ohio.

Brillo Basics

In December 2019, Innovative Brands, a division of International Wholesale, agreed to a licensing agreement with Armaly Brands to launch Brillo Basics, a line of household cleaning products.

In art

The most famous example of Brillo in pop art is works by

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

in 1964. Warhol did artwork on boxes with the 1960s Brillo logo. In 1970

Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave science fiction, New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published wo ...

and

Ben Bova Benjamin William Bova (November 8, 1932November 29, 2020) was an American writer and editor. During a writing career of 60 years, he was the author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, an editor of ''Analog Science Fiction and Fac ...

published a short story about a robot policeman titled "Brillo". The title was a pun by Bova as a robot policeman could be referred to as metal fuzz.{{Cite interview , last=Ellison , first=Harlan , interviewer=Tom Snyder , title=Tomorrow , url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4DEEgOgyU4&list=LL&index=147&t=31s , date=1980

References

External links