Brillo Pad

  Brillo Pad is a trade name for a scouring pad, used for cleaning dishes, and made from steel wool impregnated with soap.

It came at a time when the introduction of aluminium pots and pans (replacing cast iron) was creating a quiet revolution in the kitchen. Easily blackened by coal fires, the shiny newness of the cookware didn't last long.

A cookware peddler and his brother-in-law, a jeweler, approached New York lawyer Milton Loeb for assistance in protecting their invention, made of German fine steel wool and jeweler's rouge. But Loeb did much more, flinging himself into the pan- scouring business and coming up with the Brillo trademark, from the Latin (and Italian) word for "bright."^{[citation needed]}

Patented in 1913, by 1917 the Brillo Manufacturing Company was selling packaged boxes of six pads and a separate bar of soap. It was only in the 1930s that the soap was contained within the pad. The company merged with Purex Industries in 1962. The Dial Corporation bought Purex Industries in 1985. In 1997, it sold Brillo to Church and Dwight. In the USA, Brillo is made in London, Ohio.

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Trivia

• Andy Warhol, famous for making pop art out of commercial designs, built a statue replicating a stack of Brillo shipping cartons, made out of wood rather than cardboard.
• 'Brillo Pad' is also Private Eye's nickname for Andrew Neil.

Pop Culture

• Hip Hop artist MF Doom refers to Brillo Pads in Beef Rapp, the first track on his album titled MM..Food?. The verse goes as follows: "Two batteries some Brillo and some foil, he'a boil it"
• In C.W. McCall's song "Classified" McCall says "and a Brillo Box full of rusty parts" referring to the parts to a broken down '57 Chevy truck in a Brillo Pad box.

See also

• S.O.S Soap Pad

Brillo Pad is also used as a makeshift filter to smoke crack, when a tiny piece is inserted into a hollowed out "Rose Tube," found at most convenience stores.

Video clips

• Brillo pad meets a nine volt battery
• Brillo pad meets a Scottish microwave oven