Mrs. Edwin Cox, the inventor's wife, named the soap pads S.O.S., for "Save Our Saucepans," convinced that she had cleverly adapted the Morse code international distress signal for "Save Our Ships." In fact, the distress signal S.O.S. doesn't stand for anything. It's simply a combination of three letters represented by three identical marks (the S is three dots, the O is three dashes). The period after the last S was deleted from the brand name in order to obtain a trademark for what would otherwise be an international distress symbol.

In 1917, Edwin Cox, a struggling door-to-door aluminum cookware salesman in San Francisco, developed in his kitchen a steel wool scouring pad caked with dried soap as a free gift to housewives to get himself invited inside their homes to demonstrate his wares and boost sales. A few months later, demand for the soap-encrusted pads snowballed, Cox quit the aluminum cookware business and went to work for himself.

To prevent an S.O.S Steel Wool Soap Pad from rusting, wrap it in aluminum foil and place it in the freezer. Allow one hour to defrost.

S.O.S boxes are made from 100 percent recycled paperboard. Minimum 35 percent post-consumer content.

For 75 years, S.O.S has been America's best-selling steel wool soap pads.

Copyright © 2006 Joey Green. All rights reserved. "S.O.S" is a registered trademark of The Clorox Company.