Where does the name “Javel” come from?
Javel water takes its name from the ancient village of Javel, now just one of Paris’ many neighbourhoods. In 1777, Count d’Artois founded the “Manufacture pour les Acides et Sels minéraux” in Javel, where the chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet worked. While searching for a method that would ease the work of washerwomen who had to whiten clothes by exposing them to sunlight, Berthollet came across a water solution that bleached cloth artificially, and he called it “eau de Javel,” or Javel water.
