Johann Zacherl (1814 – 30 June 1888) was an Austrian inventor, industrialist and manufacturer who made a fortune in the late 19th century selling dried flower heads of Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium as an insecticide.

[1] After a longer stay in Tiflis, in 1855 he established his company, Mottenfraß-Versicherungsunternehmung Johann Zacherl, in Vienna's 19th district, and began selling the insect repellent Zacherlin.

He developed other products, including a carpet-cleaning machine "distributing over the cleansed carpet the insecticide to guard it against the attack of moth" in 1882,[4] a Pyrethrum Soap,[5] and a tincture for destroying insects.

(...) The active principle is not a volatile oil, as stated by some writers, but a rosin, which can be dissolved out from the dry flowers by means of ether.

Zacherlin's packaging showed a cossack with a high cap and an atomizer in hand, a marketing strategy that proved very successful.

Explicitly oriental in style, the polychromed brick building with pointed arches, two minarets and a dome was one of Vienna's most recognized structures.