A familiar name.
A familiar refrain.

The radio jingle

For twenty years this Hindi jingle ran on radio. It was produced by Apex Advertising and written by the late Sheel Kumar. The transcript, as sung:

Yeh dher se kapde me kaise dhoun? Accha sabun kaunsa laon? Kapdon ko joh ujala bana deh, umra bada deh, chamak la deh! … Dhanthak ka double B sabun layiye. Yeh kapdon ko ujala aur chamakdar banata hai. Kapdon ki umar badane wala, Dhanthak ka double B sabun!

A loose English rendering: How do I wash this heap of clothes? Which good soap should I bring home? One that makes clothes bright, makes them last, gives them shine. Bring Dhanthak’s double-B soap. It makes clothes bright and gleaming. The soap that gives clothes a longer life: Dhanthak’s double-B soap.

The print advertisement

Our press advertisement carried the jingle’s promise in print: the soap that makes clothes bright and gleaming, and “BB means Bombay’s Best”. It is reproduced on this page for the record.

For journalists

Facts you may quote without asking: founded in Karachi in the 1930s, in Bombay since 1948, exports since 1994, factory at Wagholi, Pune. Photographs of the factory and the cake are available on request; write to contact@bbsoap.net.