"It's going to be a pump war out there.... [Pump dispensers are] a real trend—not a fad."
Jack Saizman, industry analyst
It is hard to believe that U.S. patent number 49,561 took more than a century to become widespread, but that is exactly what happened with liquid soap. It was New Yorker William Shepphard who discovered in 1865 that, by mixing large amounts of ammonium bicarbonate with normal soap, he could produce a soap that had the consistency of treacle.
Although his invention slowly began to appear in dispensers in public, it was not until 1980 that the U.S. Minnetonka Corporation began selling it widely to the general public. Under the brand name "Softsoap*," the liquid hand cleaner was an instant success, partially due to the way it was dispensed. On the top of its^ bottle was a small plastic pump that, when depressed, issued a fixed quantity of soap onto the hand. Minnetonka had entered a market that was dominated by large global corporations. Rather sneakily, Minnetonka bought up all the available plastic pumps from suppliers, putting a stranglehold on the market to stop anyone from threatening their survival. Eventually, in 1987, the company sold its liquid soap brand to the Colgate Company, which continues to market and sell Softsoap" all over the world—still in its characteristic bottles complete with plastic pumps.
The creation of liquid soap itself was not rocket science and, as with many stories of successful innovations that lead to big business, it was the combination of inventions that led to the widespread use of the product. It was the use of the soap and the pump together that was new in 1980, and the humble plastic pump has since migrated on to dispense toothpaste and shaving cream.
