Red Star Manufacturing is an iconic Australian story of the berthing of one of many industrial small businesses around the turn of the last century, in this case 1908.
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It all began when two Danish sailors stepped off their sailing ship at the Port of Melbourne in 1907 to start a new life in Australia. Like so many immigrants of the time they arrived with no money and or spoken English. The obvious way to work and provide an income was to start your own small business. |
| Their names were Peter Peterson and Peter Mogarson who had experience in soap making. They rented accommodation in Johnston Street Fitzroy which was a heavy industrial area including its surrounding suburbs Collingwood and Carlton. Seeing the need for an industrial strength hand cleaner they went about producing, registering and selling ‘Red Star Cleaner’. |  |
They produced ‘Red Star Cleaner’ from raw materials such as tallow, bentonite, wood resin, pumice, glycerine and eucalyptus oil; all natural ingredients. They were ‘green’ before their time. Not only did they produce the finest and most natural hand cleaner, their method of distribution had a very low environmental impact.
After manufacturing the soap the two ‘Peters’ would load a small drum of perhaps 20kg of ‘Red Star Cleaner’ onto the rear carrier of their push bikes and proceed to peddle door to factory door where workers would bring their own container to be filled by Peter. He would then scoop fill their container, weighing it on crude set of scales mounted on the handle bars and charge so many pennies per pound weight.
| One of the first retail agents was McPherson Brothers and John Danks who stocked Red Star Cleaner. It would be hard to find a more environmentally friendly industry than ‘Red Star Cleaner Pty Ltd’. The ‘Peters’ had some competition with another brand called ‘Magpie’, naturally made in Collingwood, Victoria resulting commonly in a race between the two brands to ensure first to the next factory and customers. |
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‘Red Star’ would be Australia’s oldest continually manufactured industrial hand cleaner and soap maker.
There has never been a need to alter their original time tested formulation.
So next time you ‘clean up’ with ‘Red Star Cleaner’ remember these past industrial and automotive workers who experienced the same, clean and safe hands.
Lightning Products has produced a Commemorative 500gm (one pound) pack so you may experience this old, but wonderful formulation.