Persil Persil Persil is a brand of laundry detergent manufactured and marketed by Henkel around the world except in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America (except Mexico), China, Australia and New Zealand, where it is manufactured and marketed by Unilever. Persil was introduced in 1907 by Henkel. It was the first commercially available "self-activated" laundry detergent. The name was derived from two of its original ingredients, sodium perborate and sodium silicate. The chore of washing the laundry began to change with the introduction of washing powders in the 1880s. These new products originally were simply pulverized soap. New cleaning product
Phosphates in detergent the European Union and the United States. Independent product testing noted that manufacturers reformulated their products after bans. Those reports indicated that the new products without phosphates were satisfactory. States including Maine, Florida, and Indiana in the United States began restricting or banning the use of phosphates in laundry detergent in the early 1970s, culminating in a nationwide voluntary ban in 1994. In July of 2010, 17 states followed up with bans on its use in automatic dishwasher detergent. In 2004, the European Union introduced regulations to require biodegradability in all detergents. In 2011 the European Commission announced that the