The industrial production of detergent in Croatia began in 1922, when Georg Schicht’s Austrian company took over Samuel Reinitz’s soap and candle factory in Osijek (founded in 1894). By the late 1920s, the Osijek factory introduced abrasive cleaning agent ‘Vim’ and ‘Radion’, a powdered detergent for hand-washing laundry, with the slogan ‘Cleans on its own.’ After WWII, the nationalized factory continued its operations under the name ‘First Soap Factory Osijek’, but changed its name to ‘Saponia’ in 1953. In 1956, it produced the first synthetic powder for white and coloured laundry, ‘Plavi Radion’.

In smaller industrial companies in Zagreb, soaps, candles, and cleaning agents were produced. Several small companies were founded in the 1930s, including ‘Vuksan’, a soap and chemical products factory, ‘Jablan’, a soap and cleaning products factory, and ‘Sidol k.d.’, for the industrial production of chemical preparations, Gaber and Vitković.