Pears

Pears is a British soap brand founded in London in 1807 by Andrew Pears, and is best known for its transparent amber bar made with glycerine. Wikipedia describes the product as "the world's first mass-market translucent soap" [2]. The brand has been part of Lever Brothers, now Unilever, since 1917 [2], and remains one of the oldest continuously produced soap brands in Britain.

The brand is active. Its soap is still manufactured today, chiefly by Hindustan Unilever in India, and it was relaunched in the United Kingdom in 2016 [2].

Andrew Pears was a Cornish barber who moved to London in the late eighteenth century and opened a shop in Soho, where he made creams, powders and other cosmetics for a wealthy clientele. According to the heritage account, he noticed that customers were using his products to cover skin damaged by the arsenic- and lead-laden cosmetics then fashionable for achieving a pale complexion [3]. Seeing an opening, he set out to make something gentler for the skin, and after considerable experimentation arrived at a soap based on glycerine and natural oils. Its defining feature was that it was see-through: refined, golden, and clear enough to hold light. First London sales are recorded in 1807 [2].

When Andrew's grandson Francis Pears joined the business in 1835, the firm was renamed A. & F. Pears [2].

Pears won a prize medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and production moved to Isleworth in 1862. The brand's later fame owed much to Thomas J. Barratt, remembered in the heritage account as "the father of modern advertisement" [3]. Sources differ slightly on when he entered the firm: Wikipedia records that he joined as a bookkeeper in 1864 [2], while the editorial history says he became a partner in 1865 [3].

Barratt built campaigns that became landmarks of early advertising. In 1882 the actress Lillie Langtry endorsed the soap for a fee of £132, an arrangement described as the first time a celebrity endorsed a commercial product [2]. In 1886 Barratt acquired John Everett Millais' painting "Bubbles" and adapted it into an advertisement. The company also issued the long-running "Pears' Cyclopaedia," established in 1897, which continued in print until 2017. A frequently repeated slogan of the period ran, "Good morning. Have you used Pears' soap?" The company achieved a public flotation in 1892.

Lever Brothers, now Unilever, acquired A. & F. Pears in 1917, with the takeover completed by 1920 [2]. The brand has remained within Unilever since. In India the soap is produced by Hindustan Unilever, Unilever's majority-owned Indian subsidiary rather than a separate company, and contemporary manufacturing takes place in India and Saudi Arabia for global distribution [2]. Within Unilever, Pears sits alongside other personal-care brands such as Dove, Lux and Vaseline.

Pears was built around the idea of purity. Its transparent amber bar was meant as a visible signal of mildness, set against the harsher and often adulterated soaps and cosmetics of the Victorian era. The company continues to frame the soap in those terms: its official site invites customers to "hold Pears to the light" and states the bar is made with "98% pure plant-based glycerin" for a gentle, hydrating cleanse [1].

The signature product is the transparent glycerine soap. Its manufacture followed an unusual method in which the glycerol produced during saponification was left in the batch rather than removed, giving the bar its translucency. After setting, the amber material was extruded into oval bars and left to dry in warm rooms for up to thirteen weeks. Contemporary bars are sold in amber, green and mint variants and are formulated with glycerine and natural oils.

Beyond the 1851 Great Exhibition medal, Pears drew a string of Victorian testimonials from public figures including the opera singer Adelina Patti, the actress Mary Anderson and the clergyman Henry Ward Beecher.

In 2009 the transparent amber formula was replaced with a version marketed as "Gentle Care." Reviewers reported that the reformulated bar lasted about half as long, changed in scent, and no longer carried a hypoallergenic claim, prompting consumer complaints on social media. Unilever said it would improve the reformulation by January 2010 [2].

Pears remains in production. It was relaunched in the United Kingdom in 2016 under the line "The beloved British Icon Returns," continues to be manufactured by Hindustan Unilever, and is sold through a current official website and general retail [2].