Persil Power

Persil Power was a laundry detergent product developed and sold in the mid-1990s by Unilever.

In the early 1990s, Unilever's Persil detergent risked losing its market-leading position as independent tests were showing the major brands to have relatively similar performance in removing stains. Unilever decided that they needed a product with an edge in stain removal. Persil's main competitor, Ariel, had recently introduced Ariel Ultra, the first of the "super compacts" - washing powders equipped with chemical catalysts which (according to the advertising) cleaned better than ever, with less powder. Given Ariel Ultra's success, and with Persil Micro System lagging, Unilever needed a new super-compact Persil line. Thus, Persil Power was conceived.

Unilever's research teams found a manganese(IV)-based catalyst that sped up the decomposition of sodium perborate and sodium percarbonate which act as bleaches in the washing process, increasing the cleaning performance noticeably and allowing use of lower temperatures. Unilever decided that the bleaching agents would be an ideal addition to the product, but had worries over such a major alteration to the formula of one of their main products (a high profile example of this being New Coke, with a more direct example being in the late 1980s when one of Persil's competitors, Daz, introduced a new formula that also increased cleaning performance, but caused allergic reactions in a small but noticeable percentage of the population). To this end they decided to split the catalyst agent (together with some fabric softening agents) into a new product, Persil Power. This could be added to normal Persil in varying amounts depending on how tough the stains were. In May 1994, Persil Power was launched with a large publicity campaign, but a number of problems soon became apparent.