Now it is possible that some of you out there in the design world might not know or care what this fluid is. You may not have dead surfaces that need, Lazarus-like, to be brought back to life by the daily miracle of Jif. Or Cif, as we must learn to call it. And if you do crave that deep down clean, there are at least a dozen other branded and non-branded household cleaning products that combine anionic surfactants, non-ionic surfactants, soap and preservative in much the same way, to much the same effect.

Like you, I am not very interested in the stuff inside the bottle, beyond wishing it did not act on my hands like paint stripper. I do have the very faintest of desires to find out what a surfactant is, or how it is modified by being either anionic or non-ionic. But I suppress that desire. No: what fascinates me is the label.

I have noticed a tendency in the business to sneer at those who merely design labels for consumer products. "They design jam pot labels," you are told, and it means: frankly, they're not up to much. The implication is that they should set their sights higher, get to design art books or corporate identities or vacuum cleaners or airline interiors. I disagree. The designers of labels on packaging are purveyors of social history. What they do tells posterity much more about the society we live in than any investigative newspaper report, any novel, any work of art, any scientific breakthrough. As any archaeologist will tell you, our ephemera defines us.

We're all savvy to it. In any TV or film period drama, the one thing it's vital to get right is the detail of the minutiae of everyday life. That's why large profitable companies exist solely to provide producers with such props as the correct tin of custard or corned beef or soap powder. When they get it ever so slightly wrong, it glares out at you, spoils the illusion.