Windex


Windex is a glass and hard-surface cleaner. Windex was invented by the Drackett Company in 1933 and has been marketed throughout the intervening decades—originally in glass containers, later in plastic ones.
Drackett sold the Windex brand to Bristol-Meyers in 1965. S. C. Johnson acquired Windex in 1993 and has been manufacturing it since.
The original Windex was light blue. Today there are varieties marketed in several colors and fragrances, with a number of additives such as vinegar, lemon, lime, or orange juice.

Ingredients

On August 26, 1969, Melvin E. Stonebraker and Samuel P. Wise received U.S. patent #3,463,735 for a glass cleaning composition, listing example formulae, one of which is 4.0% isopropyl alcohol, 1% ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, 0.1% sodium lauryl sulfate, calcium 0.01%, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, 0.05% of 28% ammonia, 1% of a dye solution, and 0.01% perfume. This formula was not only inexpensive to manufacture but allowed the product to be packaged in glass bottles and dispensed with a plastic sprayer. In 1989, Windex was a 5% ammonia solution. The product was reformulated in 2006. In 2009, S.C. Johnson started publishing ingredients for all of its products, including Windex. The S.C. Johnson website lists Windex's ingredients as water, 2-hexoxyethanol, isopropanolamine, sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, lauramine oxide, ammonium hydroxide, fragrance, and Liquitint sky blue dye.

Competition

Windex's main competitor in the window cleaning market is Glass Plus, a glass cleaning product produced by Reckitt Benckiser, who purchased the brand from Windex’s current owner S. C. Johnson & Son