| It's a fact of retail life that wholesale cleaning | | | | form of the "Bug Bomb" developed by Lyle Goodhue |
| supplies are sold in untold numbers, in good | | | | and William Sullivan. Of course, many products, like |
| economies and bad. It's also true that, although | | | | sponges and mops, have countless modern variations |
| low-cost deals and close-outs on cleaning products | | | | but remain basically unchanged since ...well, we don't |
| naturally become more attractive when times are | | | | know when they were first used, but we're pretty |
| harder, great discounts never stop being highly | | | | sure it was very long time ago. Even such thoughtful |
| attractive even when the economy is in grade A | | | | improvements as the mop trolley commonly used for |
| shape. Regardless, products that help us clean our | | | | clean-ups at stores and industrial sites is based on |
| homes, businesses, clothing and selves, remain among | | | | some pretty old technology. |
| the most reliable products any retailer can carry. | | | | Still, there's no underestimating the impact of |
| Now, you may not realize it, but there's probably | | | | industrialization on modern day cleaning products and |
| never been a cleaner point in human history than | | | | habits. The act of cleaning clothes was once -- and |
| right now. Several hundred years back, the Western | | | | still often is in developing nations -- a tedious, difficult, |
| world was, to put it mildly, pretty filthy. Some of this | | | | and probably not very effective matter of holding |
| was cultural and some of it was due to an | | | | clothes under water and agitating them in various |
| overreaction to the massively deadly medieval Black | | | | ways. The industrial revolution gave us the earliest |
| Plague, which was thought by European physicians to | | | | ancestors of today's washing devices, and eventually |
| have been spread in public bath houses. As England | | | | the modern washer, and the laundry detergent and |
| and the continent grew more cleanliness conscious in | | | | stain removers to go with it. If you think about it, |
| the 19th century, the New World lagged behind. | | | | washing clothes with a machine is a pretty painless |
| However, partly as a result of advances made during | | | | process, especially considering the physical exertion |
| the Civil War and after, America developed a growing | | | | involved in physically agitating clothing and then |
| bond with the idea that, as the saying goes, | | | | wringing it out by hand. |
| "Cleanliness is next to godliness." Today, many | | | | Making things easy is really the name of the game |
| Europeans think that perhaps we Americans go a bit | | | | with both retail and wholesale cleaning products. |
| overboard when it comes to keeping things spotless. | | | | Cheap or expensive, modern products seek to |
| Of course, our need to be clean comes into conflict | | | | reduce the element of work that comes with |
| against all the other needs in life, like the need to | | | | cleanliness, or at least the appearance of being clean. |
| work for a living and the need to sleep. And so, | | | | Whether we're talking about products that remove |
| modern cleaning products are usually made with | | | | smells from clothing without the need for a wash, to |
| built-in conveniences, some of which are now so | | | | paper towels and flushable bathroom wipes, and |
| common we take them entirely for granted. Indeed, | | | | more elaborate items like multi-purpose vacuum |
| it's hard to imagine using, say, a glass cleaning product | | | | cleaners, to idea is get to the goal of being clean |
| without a spray bottle, even if they actually only | | | | without having to deal with too much excess labor. |
| became available during the early sixties. The aerosol | | | | Hard work may be its own reward, but it's one area |
| spray bottle arose about twenty years earlier in the | | | | where most of us are already amply rewarded. |