Classic packaging 'Brasso'

Brasso was introduced into Britain in 1905. It still remains the best-known metal polish in the world. A representative of a company called Reckitt and Sons visited Australia at the turn of the century and found that a a liquid shoe was proving to be more popular than the paste type of metal polish sold in the U.K.

He brought a sample of the liquid back home which eventually became the household metal polish that we know today. The Brasso recipe consists of a siliceous polishing powder suspended in an ammonium soap jelly and dispersed in white spirits.

This is a product that has barely changed since the turn of the century. In fact the distinctive tin has only changed once throughout the last hundred years and that was during the Second World War in 1941, when the tin had to be replaced by a glass bottle because of the shortage of metal.

The sunburst design makes the product easily recognisable when next to other products on the Super Market shelf. The recipe for the polish has basically remained the same throughout the last hundred years apart from a paste being replaced by a liquid.

The image below shows the classic Brasso tin. Brasso is a Reckitt and Coleman Product.