whatever floats your soap

CINCINNATI - Procter & Gamble Co. is setting the record straight: It turns out Ivory soap's ability to float wasn't an accident.
Ivory's buoyancy has been used in marketing since the soap went on sale in the 1800s. While the company acknowledged that the soap floats because P&G whips air into it, it long has attributed that to a production mistake.
But company archivist Ed Rider said he has discovered that a P&G chemist, James N. Gamble, had previously studied with another chemist who already knew how to make soap float. Gamble was son of company co-founder James Gamble.