The Procter Gamble Company

Charles G Yeazell

Richard M Girardot

Lyle B Tuthill

Richard G Bausch

Eric J Grosgogeat

Ronald W Kock

H Norman Reiboldt

William P Dirksing

John P Grooms

Timothy J Beechuk

Robert C Johnson

Milton D Spahni

Peter James Hargraves

Stephen W Harding

A personal cleansing implement is made from a hydrophobic piece of tubular scrim. The piece of tubular scrim is gathered along a longitudinal axis thereof to form circumferential pleats. The circumferential pleats are permanently fixed in a gathered condition by bonding together a top surface and a bottom surface of them adjacent to their perimeter while they are maintained in the gathered condition. The tubular scrim have properties which result in a consumer preferred softness in the personal cleansing implement. The properties of the tubular scrim comprise a node width ranging from 0.18 mm to 0.56 mm; a strand length ranging from 1.78 mm to 3.68 mm; and a repeat unit average weight ranging from 1.0.times.10.sup.-4 gm to 3.4.times.10.sup.-4 gm. The tubular scrim is preferably made substantially of low density polyethylene.

Personal cleansing implement made of stretched scrim providing softness

A personal cleansing implement comprises a tubular piece of hydrophobic diamond-mesh scrim, which is stretched to expand the diamond mesh, gathered along a longitudinal axis of the tubular piece of scrim to form circumferential pleats, and heat set in an expanded and pleated condition to form a substantially rectangular resilient batt. Top and bottom surfaces of the batt are bonded together adjacent the perimeter of the batt by a bonding means. Thread stitching or intermittent thermobonding are the preferred bonding means. Ultrasonic bonding is most preferred. A tether loop is connected to the implement for hanging it from a support during drying.

Implement for personal cleansing and method of construction

An extruded scrim having a diamond-mesh pattern is used to construct a personal cleansing implement. The diamond-mesh material is produced from a hydrophobic flexible polymer. The implement comprises a piece of tubular scrim having a longitudinal axis. The tubular scrim is stretched transversely to the longitudinal axis and is gathered parallel to the longitudinal axis to form circumferential pleats. In one embodiment the stretched and gathered tubular scrim is heat set in its expanded and pleated condition. A second piece of tubular scrim is placed inside the pleated and expanded scrim tubing. One end of the second piece is inverted over the outside of the pleats and connected to the other end to envelop the pleated and expanded scrim tubing. In another embodiment the pleats are not heat set and remain resilient. This embodiment has a means for confining the circumferential pleats from axial expansion. A band of material is looped through the scrim tubing and around its outer surface. Pleats are then evenly distributed around the loop to form a toroidal shaped implement. The personal cleansing implement of the present invention has a high open area, without a dense center core to inhibit rinsing and drying.

Implement for personal cleansing made from extruded plastic scrim

A method for scaling a flexible inner bag inside a squeezebottle so that the flexible inner bag will invert in order to dispense viscous fluids. The method is particularly useful in single-piece squeezebottles which have a small ratio of discharge opening cross-section to body cross-section. In practicing the present invention, a flexible inner bag has heat-activated adhesive stripes applied to the upper half of its exterior. The flexible inner bag is inserted into a squeezebottle through the discharge opening and then expanded inside the squeezebottle by compressed air. After the flexible inner bag is fully expanded, and with pressure applied to the inside of the flexible inner bag, heat is applied either to the inside of the bag or to the outside of the squeezebottle by hot air, steam, radiation, or induction heating of metal particles in the adhesive. The adhesive is heat-activated and the upper half of the flexible inner bag is thereby attached to the inner side wall of the squeezebottle.

Method for attaching a flexible inner bag to the inside of a

A bag in squeeze bottle fluid dispenser capable of dispensing substantially all of the fluid product contained therein. A suitable bag support element is inserted inside the flexible bag to prevent substantial axial movement of the bag in the direction of its discharge orifice and to encourage radial collapse of the bag instead. The internal bag support means, which in a preferred embodiment comprises an extruded plastic helix, has an internal fluid passage formed within the coils of the helix and fluid communication to allow fluid contained within the bag to access the internal fluid passage along substantially the entire length of the internal bag support element. Thus, radial collapse of the flexible bag does not block the passage of fluid remaining in the bag through the discharge orifice in the bag until substantially all of the fluid contained within the bag has been dispensed. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the internal bag support element is inserted into the dispenser through the discharge orifice of the bag to a point substantially coinciding with the opposite end of the flexible bag after the bag has been filled with the fluid to be dispensed.

Bag-in-squeeze-bottle fluid dispenser with unsealed fluid passage

Bottle

Growing community of inventors

Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Charles G Yeazell