Ivory (soap) - History

History

Because Ivory is one of P&G's oldest products (first sold in 1879), P&G is sometimes called "Ivory Towers" and its factory and research center in St. Bernard, Ohio is called "Ivorydale".

Ivory bar soap is whipped with air in its production and floats in water. According to an apocryphal urban legend, later discounted by the company, a worker accidentally left the mixing machine on too long and the company chose to sell the "ruined" batch because mixing air longer did not change the basic ingredients of the soap. When appreciative letters about the new, floating soap inundated the company, P&G ordered the extended mix time as a standard setting. However, company records indicate that the design of Ivory was not the result of accident. In 2004, over 100 years later, the P&G company archivist Ed Rider found documentation that revealed that chemist James N. Gamble, son of the founder, had discovered how to make the soap float and noted the result in his writings.

Ivory's first slogan "It Floats!" was introduced in 1891. The product's other well-known slogan, " Pure", was based on the results of an analysis by an independent laboratory the founder's son, Harley Procter, hired to demonstrate that Ivory was purer than the castile soap then available.

Ivory soap had been more caustic in comparison to some milder bars such as Dove, a non-soap synthetic detergent bar. Plus, some consumer investigations had found that Ivory's antimicrobial activity was better than that of other skin soaps, even those containing antibacterials such as triclosan. A postulate for this effectiveness is the ability of the soap to lyse bacteria efficiently, and to rinse cleanly. The drawback to the soap was its drying effect on the skin, as it had easily dissolved natural oils. Of all the commercial soaps, Ivory has been considered the best by holistic health people, but was criticized for what it did not contain, glycerin. One reason is that glycerin was expensive and would raise the cost of the bars, which had the value of being about the least expensive soap available for people of modest means.