Comet is an American brand of scouring powders and other

household A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

cleaning products 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 ...

manufactured by KIK Custom Products Inc. The brand was introduced in 1956 by

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/con ...

(P&G) and sold to Prestige Brands in 2001. In 2018, Prestige Brands sold the Comet brand to KIK Custom Products Inc. P&G retained the rights to market the brand in Europe and to the professional market (non-home-consumer) in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Ingredients

According to the Safety Data Sheets (SDS) published by Procter & Gamble for "PGP Comet Deodorizing Cleanser with Chlorinol" and Prestige Brands for "Comet Powdered Cleanser", Comet cleanser contains 60–100%

calcium carbonate Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a common substance found in Rock (geology), rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite, most notably in chalk and limestone, eggshells, gastropod shells, shellfish skel ...

( Ca CO₃). Ingredients that are common to all Prestige Brands Comet Powdered Cleansers are listed as: *

Calcium carbonate Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a common substance found in Rock (geology), rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite, most notably in chalk and limestone, eggshells, gastropod shells, shellfish skel ...

- Scrubbing agent *

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 with water. Annually, approxim ...

- pH adjuster * Fragrance - Smell * Green 7 - Colorant (absent in "Comet Lemon Powder") *

Sodium carbonate Sodium carbonate (also known as washing soda, soda ash, sal soda, and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield alkaline solutions in water ...

- Builder/sequestering agent *

Sodium Sodium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Na (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 element, group 1 of the peri ...

linear alkylbenzenesulfonate

surfactant Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension or interfacial tension between two liquids, a liquid and a gas, or a liquid and a solid. The word ''surfactant'' is a Blend word, blend of "surface-active agent", coined in ...

- Cleaning agent * Trichloro-s-triazinetrione - Bleach * Trichloroisocyanuric acid (Symclosene) – Disinfectant The P&G Professional Comet SDS details percentages of the major component chemicals: *

: 60-100% *

: 7-13% *

: 1-5% * Sodium dichloro-s triazinetrione

dihydrate In chemistry, a hydrate is a substance that contains water or its constituent elements. The chemical state of the water varies widely between different classes of hydrates, some of which were so labeled before their chemical structure was understo ...

: 1-5% (Note: Not all ingredients are listed on an SDS.)

Warnings

Mixing cleaning products containing bleach or other oxygenates (such as Comet) with products that contain

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...

acid An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...

is dangerous. The P&G Comet SDS specifically warns to: "Avoid contact with acids and ammonia." Despite being labeled as "scratch free", the label for Comet cleanser also advises the use of plenty of water on "delicate surfaces". Comet powdered cleanser is not recommended for use on

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

, painted surfaces, walls, soft plastic,

aluminum 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 ...

, and

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Types of polyisoprene ...

Cultural references

* In the mid-1960s, former child actor Jane Withers gained new popularity as Josephine the Plumber, a character in a series of television commercials for Comet. The one-minute spots, which ran from 1963 to 1974, involved Withers in up to 30 storylines per year. * In 1969, '' Wacky Packages'' included a mock ad, drafted by

Art Spiegelman Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman ( ; born February 15, 1948), professionally known as Art Spiegelman, is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazin ...

and painted by Tom Sutton, depicting a flag-waving American Revolutionary soldier and a pair of club-wielding policemen chasing a group of hippies carrying picket signs inscribed "For Freedom!" and "Love! Not War!", with a prominent slogan, "Keep America Clean with Commie Cleanser" and a can, depicting a

caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...

Uncle Sam Uncle Sam (with the same initials as ''United States'') is a common national personification of the United States, depicting the federal government of the United States, federal government or the country as a whole. Since the early 19th centu ...

, and inscribed, "Extra Strong Commie Cleanser" and "Gets Rid of Reds, Pinkos,

Hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

s, Yippies & Flippies". The mock ad has also appeared depicting the can alone. * A

children's song A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studie ...

about

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

is sung to the tune of the " Colonel Bogey March". It rhymes "Comet" with "vomit". The complete lyrics are: An alternative version uses different first lines: or * The song " Rip Her to Shreds" by the American rock/new wave band Blondie mentions Comet:

References

External links

*{{official, http://www.cometcleaner.com/ Cleaning products Former Procter & Gamble brands Prestige Brands brands Products introduced in 1956

Ingredients

Warnings

Cultural references

See also

References

External links