A Denver cleaning company, a home show and a pitchman.

OxiClean was introduced in 1997 by Orange Glo International, according to English Wikipedia, which describes it as an American brand of household cleaners led by OxiClean Versatile Stain Remover, a laundry additive, spot stain remover and household cleaner. Wikipedia’s article on the pitchman Billy Mays describes Orange Glo as a Denver-based manufacturer of cleaning products and names its founder as Max Appel. Besides OxiClean, the company’s line included Orange Glo, Orange Clean and Kaboom, the same article says.

The connection that shaped the brand’s public face was made before OxiClean existed. Wikipedia says Billy Mays met Appel, then a rival salesman, at a home show in Pittsburgh in 1993, and that Orange Glo then hired him to promote its cleaners on the Home Shopping Network in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mays had spent years demonstrating products at fairs and shows, and at Orange Glo he brought that style to television. In October 2000, Wikipedia says, he shot an infomercial for OxiClean, then three years old, and became a fixture of the brand and of Orange Glo more widely, later appearing for Kaboom as well.

Wikipedia’s OxiClean article says the product was marketed through infomercials with Mays in the United States and Canada from 2000, billed as a “miracle cleanser.” Mays’s catchphrase, “Hi, Billy Mays here,” and his loud delivery became part of how viewers knew the brand. The Wayback Machine’s copy of oxiclean.com from 14 December 2004 titles the site “OxiClean – The Stain Specialist!” and offers an “As Seen on TV!” demonstration, with links out to separate sites for Orange Clean, Orange Glo and Kaboom and an “Ask the Expert” page for readers’ stain questions.

The company names its chemistry on its site. Wikipedia identifies sodium percarbonate, an adduct of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide, as one of the active ingredients, and the brand’s site lists sodium percarbonate, sodium carbonate, surfactants and a polymer in its formulation. The company frames this as oxygen cleaning, under the line “Powered by the air you breathe, activated by the water you drink.”

A new owner, a detergent and a second pitchman.

On 7 August 2006 Church & Dwight, the New Jersey company behind Arm & Hammer, acquired substantially all the assets of Orange Glo International, English Wikipedia says, adding the OxiClean, Kaboom and Orange Glo brands. Church & Dwight has owned OxiClean since 2006 and runs it from its headquarters in Ewing Township, New Jersey.

Under the new owner the name moved from a stain-removing additive into the detergent aisle. Wikipedia says the brand expanded into laundry detergent with the OxiClean Detergent Ball, followed by OxiClean Liquid Laundry Detergent in 2014. The company now describes the OxiClean family as including liquids, pretreaters, laundry detergents and dish-washing products. Wikipedia lists related products such as OxiClean MaxForce Spray, OxiClean White Revive and OxiClean Baby Stain Soaker. The name also crosses into its sister brand: the Arm & Hammer site sells a laundry line labelled Arm & Hammer Plus OxiClean, which puts both names on one bottle.

Television stayed at the centre of the brand after the sale. Mays remained associated with OxiClean through 2009, Wikipedia says. On 15 April 2009 the Discovery Channel began airing PitchMen, a documentary series following Mays and his business partner Anthony Sullivan in direct-response marketing, and OxiClean was featured on the show several times. Wikipedia says the product has since been endorsed by Sullivan, a friend and co-worker of Mays, so the brand kept the same on-screen register with a new presenter.

Wikipedia says Church & Dwight names OxiClean among its “power brands,” alongside Arm & Hammer, Batiste, Waterpik, TheraBreath, Hero and Touchland, which it considers to have significant potential for international expansion. Richard Dierker has been chief executive of Church & Dwight since 2 April 2025, succeeding Matthew Farrell.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all sell laundry care: detergents, fabric softeners, stain removers and products for delicate clothes. They sit side by side on the same supermarket shelf, often in the same aisle, and a shopper usually picks one out in a few seconds, from several steps away.

That is why a laundry brand’s identity tends to live on the pack. Bottle and box colours, the shape and placement of a logo, the name of a scent printed across a label and, for some brands, a mascot or a familiar face from television advertising all do the work of recognition. The same name can also appear on a liquid, a powder, a pod or a dryer sheet, so the visual system has to hold together across very different containers. Within a single range, colour can also be used to tell one version apart from another at a glance.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who launched the brand, who has owned it over time and how its packs and advertising have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A coined name, a demonstration and a voice.

The OxiClean identity was built as much on television as on the pack. Its early marketing, as Wikipedia records it, came through infomercials and home-shopping segments rather than print. The brand’s 2004 website led with the phrase “The Stain Specialist!” and an “As Seen on TV!” demonstration.

The presenter was part of the identity. Wikipedia describes Billy Mays’s beard, attire, loud voice and impassioned pitches as making him a recognised presence on American and Canadian television, and his opening line, “Hi, Billy Mays here,” became a catchphrase. The documentary series PitchMen in 2009 put that style, and the OxiClean demonstrations, in front of a wider audience, and Anthony Sullivan has carried the brand’s on-screen role since.

Since 2006 the name has also had to work as a family. Under Church & Dwight it covers stain removers, sprays, pretreaters, detergents and dish products, and it appears as an ingredient name on Arm & Hammer laundry bottles. The company’s current line about air and water frames the brand around oxygen.

For a design guide, OxiClean shows how a direct-response brand can turn a demonstration and a presenter into its signature — compare Arm & Hammer, its stablemate at Church & Dwight, and Tide. For this guide we use oxygen blue, scoop orange and bubble white with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep OxiClean’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.