Mr. Muscle

Mr. Muscle

Type	Private
Industry	Surfactants
Founded	1986
Headquarters	United Kingdom
Key people	S. C. Johnson & Son
Products	hard surface cleaner

Mr. Muscle is a brand of hard surface cleaners. It has been manufactured by S. C. Johnson & Son, since their purchase of Drackett from Bristol-Myers in 1992. The original product was developed at Drackett in 1986.^{[citation needed]}

Oven cleaners at the time were pretty much all the same as Reckitt & Colman's Easy-Off, the leading brand. A strong base such as caustic soda attacked grease by saponification. Surfactants attacked both grease and food spills. An abrasive may be present to help scour the oven. The product worked better if the oven was hot, and working in a fairly close space with hot oven cleaner fumes was unpleasant, to say the least.^{[citation needed]}

Appliance manufacturers offered continuous-clean ovens, which had a special coating. Consumers, however, discovered these overs were rarely cleaned by the process. Additionally, supplemental use of chemical cleaners destroyed the special coating that enabled continuous-clean to function. Manufacturers next offered self-cleaning ovens, which allows the oven to run at a special high-temperature setting, effectively burning food residue into a carbon deposit. Early self-cleaning ovens weren't thoroughly satisfactory. At worst, they left carbon stuck to the oven surfaces. At best, they left carbon residue on the oven floor.^{[citation needed]}

Industry legend has it that Drackett researchers, while trying to find a cold oven cleaner, found that ammonia would plasticize food spills, making them easier to remove. However, this took hours - and ammonia would evaporate in that time. Looking for a less volatile chemical with the general characteristics of ammonia, they found that monoethanolamine had similar properties.^{[citation needed]}

MEA is a weak base, so it required the addition of caustic soda as well as surfactants and bentonite as an abrasive. Like most household cleaning aerosols, the propellant is a blend of propane and isobutane. Because the product required significant time to work properly, it was marketed as an overnight oven cleaner.^{[citation needed]}

The product quickly grew to be the second best-selling oven cleaner. The product's popularity was limited by the strong fumes it created, as well as the length of time required to thoroughly clean. Consumers were not thrilled at the prospect of awakening in the morning to the task of wiping chemicals, carbon and grease out of their ovens. There was no official website for Mr. Muscle,^{[clarification needed]} suggesting that S. C. Johnson wasn't excited at growth potential of the product. However, there is now one available for the public to view.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy

In 1994 there was some controversy regarding Mr Muscle after complaints over the potency of the cleaning agents within the product, which were thought to be unnecessarily high and of a level that could lead to potential health problems.^[1][2]

The UK study by the Welsh Regional Burns and Plastics Unit, Chepstow, Gwent, UK, found:

"Mr Muscle is the proprietary name for a brand of household cleaning preparations produced by Bristol-Myers Co. Ltd of Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK. Recently manufacturing and marketing rights were purchased by Johnson Wax Ltd of Camberley, Surrey, part of S.C. Johnson and Son Inc. of Racine, Wisconsin, USA. The spray-on oven cleaner has been the causal link in a series of six deep dermal and full thickness skin burns admitted to the Welsh Regional Burns and Plastic Unit during the period January 1990 to July 1992. These patients will be discussed as a series of case reports. The constituents of the cleaner, its mode of action, packaging and presentation, together with regulations controlling its use will be discussed. Also a treatment regimen, with a plan of prevention for future burns, will be proposed. Information from the Johnson Wax group regarding recent revisions in the marketing of the product will also be presented."

—Welsh Regional Burns and Plastics Unit^[1]

The US Department of Health and Human Sevices (HHS.gov), which lists household product information for heatlth and safety, lists the Health & Effects information taken from the Mr Muscle product label and/or the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) prepared by the product manufacturer. Mr Muscle is rated as a scale 3-(serious) for Health Rating and a 4-(severe) for flammability.^[3] (This was using the established HMIS, Hazardous Materials Identification System.)

Trivia

Chemist Gary Bush, who led Draclett's product development of Mr. Muscle at the time, used the handle of Mr. Muscle during the CB radio craze of the 1980s. In September 2006 they changed the Mr. Muscle from the famous man to another new actor due to a pay dispute.^{[citation needed]}

Star Wars actor Gerald Home was the original Mr. Muscle in a long-running series of commercials on British TV, which were also shown throughout Europe and in Australia and New Zealand.^{[citation needed]}

The logo for the well known brand has a hidden icon, if you look closely at the letter U for Mr Muscle its shaped like a curved arm with a contracted biceps.^{[citation needed]}

In 1998 former theatre de complicite actor Phil Gunderson took over the role as SC Johnson sought to create a unified global image. Adverts were filmed for a whole spectrum of countries, worldwide, with filming in South Africa, Bulgaria, Poland, The Philippines, UK and Netherlands. The principal director for these ads was Greg Francois and the creative director was Pete Cayless working from FCB London. A new direction for the advert was launched in September 2008 with an animated superhero figure. This led the commercial away from its previously humour based content in line with other commercials such as cillit bang and flash. Several Facebook sites were launched in protest to 'bring back the old mr muscle'. The company has now gone for a cartoon Mr. Muscle who is actually strong and muscular, not a weedy character played by an actor who is ironically called Mr. Muscle.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Harper, R; Dickson, W (1994). "Mr Muscle^® oven cleaner — is he too strong for us?". Burns 20 (4): 336–9. doi:10.1016/0305-4179(94)90063-9. PMID 7945824. 
2. ^ Aydin, Hasan Utkan; Basat, Salih O.; Uğurlu, Alper M.; Karabulut, Aylin B. (2009). "Unusual Burn Injury in a Child Caused by a Cleaning Agent". Journal of Burn Care & Research 30 (5): 907. doi:10.1097/BCR.0b013e3181b48783. PMID 19692927. 
3. ^ http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=brands&id=4010007

External links

• Mr. Muscle Official Website
• Mr. Muscle Multi Task in Germany
• Mr. Muscle named “The Most Hygienic Cleaner” in Turkey
• NIH Household Product Database entry
• How Self Cleaning Ovens Work Article by HowStuffWorks.com
• US Patent 4,167,488