About Brillo
Brillo is one of America's most recognizable household cleaning brands, famous for its iconic steel wool soap pads that have been cutting through grease and grime since 1913. The name derives from the Latin word meaning "bright"—perfectly describing what Brillo pads do to cookware. The brand's origin story begins in early 1900s New York, where an unnamed cookware peddler and his jeweller brother-in-law developed a method to clean blackened cookware using jewellers' rouge, soap, and fine steel wool imported from Germany. Their invention came at the perfect time, as new aluminium pots and pans were replacing cast iron but blackened easily during cooking. New York attorney Milton Loeb secured a patent for the product in 1913 and established the Brillo Manufacturing Company. By 1917, they were packaging five steel wool pads per box with a separate cake of soap. The revolutionary step of embedding soap directly into the steel wool came in the 1930s, creating the familiar Brillo pad format still sold today. The company relocated to London, Ohio in 1921, where production continues to this day. Through various ownership changes—Purex Industries (1962), Dial Corporation (1985), Church & Dwight (1997)—the brand maintained its market position. Since 2010, Brillo has been owned by Armaly Brands of Michigan. Brillo's cultural significance extends beyond cleaning: Andy Warhol's famous Brillo Boxes pop art sculptures immortalized the brand's distinctive packaging in the 1960s. The soap pads are made from steel wool with soap derived from natural beef tallow. Available at UK supermarkets including Asda and Morrisons, Brillo remains the go-to choice for tackling tough kitchen cleaning tasks.