Dreft Detergent: "A Film Mystery" 1937 Procter & Gamble Theatrical Screen Ad

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Movie theater commercial for Dreft detergent. "The marvelous new suds for washing silks, rayons and woolens" is also good for dishwashing.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives or Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreft

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Dreft is a laundry detergent in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and other markets. First produced by Procter & Gamble in 1933, it was the first synthetic detergent made. The Fairy brand of washing-up liquid and Cascade brand of dishwashing detergent are also sold under the name "Dreft" in some countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium. In Canada, it is called Ivory Snow...

Technology

Synthetic detergents represented an improvement in laundry washing because these synthetic materials are less susceptible to hard water. The commercial availability of fatty alcohols opened the way for the production of the related organosulfate derivatives. In Germany, BASF started selling FeWA, followed by Dreft in the following year.

Marketing

By 1947, Dreft dishwashing detergent was released...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_detergent

Laundry detergent, or washing powder, is a type of detergent (cleaning agent) that is added for cleaning laundry. While detergent is still sold in powdered form, liquid detergents have been taking major market shares in many countries since their introduction in the 1950s.

Laundry detergent pods have also been sold in the United States since 2012 when they were introduced by Procter & Gamble as Tide Pods. Earlier instances of laundry detergent pods include Salvo tablets sold in the 1960s and 1970s...

From ancient times, chemical additives were used to facilitate the mechanical washing of clothing with water. The Italians used a mix of sulfur and water with charcoal to clean cloth. Egyptians added ashes and silicates to soften water. Soaps were the first detergents. The detergent effects of certain synthetic surfactants were noted in Germany in 1917, in response to shortages of soap during World War I. In the 1930s, commercially viable routes to fatty alcohols were developed, and these new materials were converted to their sulfate esters, key ingredients in the commercially important German brand FEWA, produced by BASF, and Dreft, the U.S. brand produced by Procter and Gamble. Such detergents were mainly used in industry until after World War II. By then, new developments and the later conversion of aviation fuel plants to produce tetrapropylene, used in household detergents, caused a fast growth of domestic use in the late 1940s...

Laundry detergents may contain builders (50% by weight, approximately), surfactants (15%), bleach (7%), enzymes (2%), soil antiredeposition agents, foam regulators, corrosion inhibitors, optical brighteners, dye transfer inhibitors, fragrances, dyes, fillers and formulation aids...