Product type Dish detergent Country United Kingdom Website Fairy Liquid | Owner Procter & Gamble Introduced 1950 | |
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Fairy is a brand of washing-up liquid produced by Procter & Gamble at their West Thurrock factory (The London Plant), in England, launched in 1950. Fairy liquid is traditionally green, prompting the well-known advertising jingle "Now hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid".
Contents
As of 2015, Fairy is sold in most parts of Europe, although regional names vary. Fairy liquid is available in a variety of colour and scent combinations. The original white bottle with red cap was replaced with PET bottles.
In the UK, Fairy Liquid has become a genericized trademark for washing up liquid.
Fairy soap bars were originally manufactured by Thomas Hedley Co. of Newcastle upon Tyne which was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 1927.
50th anniversary
In February 2010, Fairy brought back the original washing up liquid bottle (which was used until 2000) to celebrate 50 years of the brand. Nanette Newman, who appeared in the 1980s TV advertisements returned for a new campaign to promote the launch.
Other products
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Fairy is also a longstanding brand of non-biological laundry detergent, the original soap-based variant being known as "Fairy Snow". In recent years, Fairy Non-Bio also have added fabric conditioner to their product range. Like Fairy dish detergent, its traditional trademark is a walking baby.
Fairy was also a brand of soap in those countries, characteristically green in colour and available both in the form of larger rectangular 155g blocks for laundry and other household purposes and in the smaller rounded 125g size as toilet soap, where it used the same "walking baby" trademark as the laundry powder and was marketed as a pure, mild product. It was suddenly discontinued by the manufacturers in about 2009 to the disapproval of its faithful customer base.
The Fairy brand has expanded further from the soap-based products, and is now also used on automatic dishwashing products; the latest being "Fairy Activebursts". These are pouches of powder and specially formulated washing-up liquid, which are specifically designed for domestic dishwashers. There are also other variants, a power spray for cleaning pots and pans and for a period of time a foam/mousse was sold.
Outside the United Kingdom
In popular culture
In the 2006 BBC television series Life on Mars, DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and his men mockingly sing the Fairy liquid commercial jingle to a group of uniformed officers examining a crime scene while wearing rubber kitchen gloves under the direction of DI Sam Tyler (John Simm).