Shower Cleaners
Chinese New Year: To celebrate, families may give their homes a thorough cleaning, sweeping away any ill-fortune to make way for good luck in the new year. Showers are often one of the least enjoyable places to clean.
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Cool shower sprinkles on steamy summer afternoons and hot shower sprays on frigid winter mornings are among life’s simple pleasures. Frequent “showerers” would find showering even more enjoyable if they could forgo cleaning the shower after a splash.
Clean Shower was invented in Jacksonville, Fla., by a chemist named Robert H. Black. According to news accounts in 1997, Black was motivated by a life-changing event: His wife made him clean the shower, and he realized what a nasty job that was. “Being an inventor, I invented my way out of it,” he is quoted as saying.
According to U.S. patent 5,910,474, the principal ingredients of Clean Shower are a nonionic surfactant, a chelating agent, and an alcohol. A preferred formulation described in the patent specifies the following composition, in percent by volume: isopropyl alcohol, 4.4; Antarox BL-225 (a mixed ethylene glycol ether nonionic surfactant), 1.5; Hamp-ene diammonium EDTA (a chelating agent that is a 44% aqueous solution of diammonium ethylenediamine tetraacetate), 1.5; and fragrance, 0.002. The balance is made up with water. The composition is supposed to prevent the buildup of deposits and provide a pleasant sheen on shower surfaces without the need for rinsing, wiping, or scrubbing.
Visit ”What’s That Stuff” to read more about shower cleaners.
Excerpted with permission, Chemical & Engineering News
Copyright © 2001 American Chemical Society