Drackett purchased the product from inventor
Judson Dunaway of
Dover, New Hampshire, who introduced Vanish in 1937 as a competitor to
Sani-Flush, a toilet bowl cleaner made since 1911. The products were substantially the same. The active ingredient in crystal bowl cleaners is
sodium bisulfate (also known as sodium hydrogen sulfate).
Surfactants are added. The last Sani-Flush patent had expired in 1932. Most other household cleaners are
basic (
alkaline) in nature. In 1947, Hygienic Products sued Judson Dunaway on grounds of trademark infringement and
unfair competition. Sani-Flush used a yellow 22-ounce can showing a woman pouring bowl cleaner into a toilet. Initially, Vanish sold their product in a white 22-ounce showing the bowl cleaner coming from the bottom of the "I". After World War II, Vanish advertising started to show a woman pouring the product into a toilet bowl, and then a hand, obviously female, pouring powder into a toilet bowl. Dunaway won on appeal. With the withdrawal of
sodium bisulfate toilet bowl crystals from the marketplace circa-2009, the Sani-Flush name and US trademark were abandoned; the Vanish brand remains in use, but only to identify other toilet cleaners (with differing formats and chemistry) from the same manufacturer. An
in-tank toilet cleaner, intended to compete with
2000 Flushes and
Clorox automatic, was introduced under the Vanish brand in 2000. Initial problems with in-tank cleansers damaging toilet flappers, allowing water to leak into the bowl, were addressed by adding new durability and marking requirements for flappers to the ASME A112.19.5 standard in 2005. A Vanish Thick Liquid Disinfectant Bowl Cleaner sold for industrial and institutional use only is 9.25%
hydrochloric acid by weight. Vanish is now sold in the US under the
Scrubbing Bubbles Vanish Continuous Clean Drop-Ins brand, reducing the Vanish name to a sub-brand. ==References==