[2] Domestos was first produced in 1929 by Wilfred Handley, an industrial chemist, and sold door-to-door by salesmen who refilled stoneware jars bought by the customers.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Unilever ran a new TV campaign which featured a pastiche of the song Big Bad John, in which a Domestos bottle moved around a bathroom in the style of a cowboy.

[8] In 2005, various adverts for different Domestos brands were shown on television and cinemas, with computer generated germ-like creatures made to represent Salmonella, E. coli and Staphylococcus.

[9] The 5× Longer Domestos advert showed a germ cheerfully skipping and singing a song in a very deep American voice, reminiscent of narration in horror movie trailers.

Domestos is known as Domex in Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka and is marketed with the claim of a "one-stop solution" to a household's cleaning requirements instead of using a different cleaner for kitchen surface, floor and bathroom.