Bon Ami

History

19th century

The original Bon Ami formula was developed in 1886 by the J. T. Robertson Soap Company as a gentler alternative to quartz-based scouring powders available in stores. In those days, scouring powder was made from tallow and finely ground quartz. When quartz was mined, it was entwined with feldspar, and the two had to be separated by hand. The feldspar was discarded until Robertson discovered that this soft mineral could be combined with soap to create a less-abrasive product that would clean without scratching, resulting in the Bon Ami product.

Bon Ami was originally manufactured in a factory in Glastonbury, Connecticut, which later moved to Manchester in the 1880s.

As of 1896, Bon Ami was a common product in northeastern United States households. The slogan "hasn't scratched yet!" is an early American trademark.

20th century

In the early 1900s, Alfred William Erickson, founder of McCann, revived the brand with full-color pages in leading women's magazines. He accepted Bon Ami as a client . Artist Ben Austrian painted the prints, and Ben's wife served as the model in the ads. The campaign blossomed into literature with the release of The Chick That Never Grew Up, a work of children's literature featuring Princess Bon Ami.

In 1963, Lestoil purchased an approximately 60% stake in Bon Ami. Bon Ami merged into Lestoil in 1964, after protracted negotiations.

In 1971, Bon Ami was purchased by the Faultless Starch Company, which later changed the corporation name to Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company to help reintroduce Bon Ami to the market.

In 1980, the company again revived its brand with a magazine campaign featuring the headline "never underestimate the cleaning power of a 94-year-old chick with a French name". During the first 6 months of the campaign, Bon Ami sales rose 12%. Nevertheless, its business was still flagging by 1983, when it remained in third place behind products from Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive.

21st century

In 2011, Bon Ami celebrated its 125th anniversary by rereleasing the original cleaning cake for purchase. Limited supplies were offered both with and without a commemorative tin, celebrating the original formula's popularity.

Ingredients

The product called "original" contains only feldspar. For other products, the Bon Ami website lists the following as main ingredients: feldspar, limestone, water, baking soda, citric acid, corn alcohol, epsom salts, essential oils, and xanthan gum.

In popular culture

In the 1966 film The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, whenever discussing a murder at an old mansion, one character mentions that the police were unable to clean the blood off the organ keys, and another character adds, "And they used Bon Ami!" Lead actor Don Knotts personally got permission from the president of Bon Ami to include this reference to the company's product.

In the first volume of his autobiography, Isaac Asimov recalls a box his family kept in the bathroom when he was a child, and how in his childish naïveté he was impressed that the company was so conscientious that if they ever found that the powder had scratched, they would change the slogan to "Only Scratched Once!"

Jane Vandenburgh's novel Failure to Zigzag makes reference to Bon Ami's slogan "hasn't scratched yet".

References

Sources

References

1. Hubbard, Robert. (2012). "Glastonbury". [[Arcadia Publishing]].
2. (2002). "A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th-Century Consumer Culture". [[Greenwood Press]].
3. Rhinelander, David. (1999-08-27). "Scratching the Surface of Bon Ami's Beginnings". [[Hartford Courant]].
4. Barach, Arnold B.. (1971). "Famous American Trademarks". [[PublicAffairs.
5. Nesbit, Wilbur Dick. (1922). "First Principles of Advertising". Gregg Publishing Company.
6. Percy, Pam. (2002). "The Complete Chicken". Voyageur Press.
7. Hirschhorn, Bernard. (1997). "Democracy Reformed: Richard Spencer Childs and His Fight for Better Government". [[Greenwood Publishing Group]].
8. (1963-08-27). "Lestoil Buys Control of Bon Ami for Cash". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
9. (1964-06-27). "Lestoil and Bon Ami Reach Accord With Merger Foes". [[The New York Times]].
10. (1983-03-21). "Bon Ami Now Scratches for Soap Market Share". [[The New York Times]].
11. (1982). "Fundamentals of Marketing". [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]].
12. "Bon Ami 125th Anniversary Cleaning Cake Kit".
13. "Bon Ami® 1886 Original Formula SDS Number: 04030".
14. "The Bon Ami Story". Bon Ami.
15. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. (1997). "Tender Is the Night". [[Penguin Books.
16. (1999). "Barney Fife, and Other Characters I Have Known". Berkley Boulevard Books.
17. Asimov, Isaac. (1979). "In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954". Doubleday.
18. Vandenburgh, Jane. (2000-05-03). "Failure to Zigzag". [[Counterpoint (publisher).