The J.T. Robertson Soap Company of Manchester, Connecticut, first manufactured Bon Ami polishing soap in about 1886. During the 1880's one of the nation's outstanding trademarks was Sapolio, a scouring soap made from finely ground quartz and tallow soap. Robertson was the factory superintendent for the Williams Soap Company, a firm that hoped to duplicate Sapolio and create a competitive product.

Quartz for the soap was obtained from mines in the Northeast. The quartz was always entwined with softer feldspar and the two minerals had to be separated by hand using "cobbing" hammers. The feldspar was discarded until someone suggested that this soft mineral might be combined with soap to create a less abrasive product to clean hard surfaces without scratching them. This appealed to Scotsman Robertson's thriftiness. Robertson formed his venture and began operations in an unused grist mill located on property owned by Gurdon Hicks Childs. The feldspar was ground to a fine powder, mixed with liquid soap in wooden troughs, cured and cut into cakes, imprinted with the Bon Ami name, wrapped and packed in quarter-gross boxes for market.

William H. Childs, son of Gurdon Hicks Childs, and his cousin, William Henry Harrison Childs, formed the firm of Childs and Childs in 1890 and the firm became the exclusive sales agent for Bon Ami.

By 1896, Bon Ami had become quite successful and the 10-cent bar with the yellow chick on its label was evident in households throughout the Northeast.

The yellow chick on the label, with its companion slogan "Hasn't Scratched Yet!" has become a textbook example of early American trademarks, but few people now remember the facts behind the cute chick's relation to Bon Ami. A newly hatched chick will not scratch the ground for food for two or three days after it comes out of the shell because it is still living off the nutrients of the yolk. As neither chicks nor Bon Ami scratch, the chick is an appropriate symbol with the trademarked slogan "Hasn't Scratched Yet."®

During the first decade of the 20th century, A.W. Erickson, the founder of McCann Erickson Advertising, is credited with switching Bon Ami advertising to beautiful full-color pages in leading women's magazines. Ben Austrian, a noted Pennsylvania artist, did the paintings of the chicks. Austrian's little chick gained worldwide appeal and lithographic prints were made from the original paintings.

After 50 years of growth, Bon Ami sales began to decline. Several changes of ownership and management occurred and the product almost disappeared from the market by the late 1960's.

The Faultless Starch Company's major acquisition came in 1971 with the purchase of the Bon Ami Company. The Bon Ami products included the familiar original formula Cleaning Cake, the original formula Bon Ami Cleaning Powder and Bon Ami Deluxe Polishing Cleanser, which was an updated formula of the original.

To emphasize the return of Bon Ami to the market, the name of the organization was changed to Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company in 1974.

In an effort to increase sales of Bon Ami, in 1980 the firm launched a national magazine advertising campaign that capitalized on the original Bon Ami trademark with the headline: "Never Underestimate the Cleaning Power of a 94 Year-Old Chick With a French Name."

During the first six months of the campaign, Bon Ami sales rose 12% and today, Bon Ami maintains about a 5% share of the cleanser business, ranking as the third best-selling powdered cleanser in the United States.

A letter helped the reintroduction of Bon Ami from Gordon T. Beaham, III and was reprinted on page 594 of the September 1974 Whole Earth (Catalog) Epilog. The letter pointed out that Bon Ami could be considered less harmful to the environment than other cleaners because it did not use phosphates, chlorine, perfume or dyes in its formula: "But we live in a time, I believe, when many 'old fashioned' old reliable products are about to become New Products, and Products of the Future, as we delicately restructure our priorities, re-direct technology toward what's ecologically necessary…." Many environmentalists and chemically-sensitive people currently insist on Bon Ami because it does not rely on harsh chemicals to clean.

In the September, 1986 and August, 1996 issues of a United States' leading consumer magazine, Bon Ami topped the ratings as the most effective scouring cleanser, beating out such competitors as Comet®, Ajax®, Soft Scrub® and Old Dutch®.

Bon Ami, now in its second century, continues to offer its earth-friendly cleanser in grocery stores, mass merchandise stores, hardware stores, health food stores, mail order stores, and other channels of distribution.