Mr. Muscle marrying Mrs. Meyer

Mr. Muscle, meet Mrs. Meyer.

Consumer products giant SC Johnson has acquired Minneapolis-based Caldrea Co. for an undisclosed amount.

The deal combines well-known household products such as Mr. Muscle kitchen cleaner and Off! insect repellent with Caldrea and Mrs. Meyer's, two specialty brands that cater to environmentally conscious consumers.

In an interview Monday, Caldrea founder and chief executive Monica Nassif said SC Johnson, based in Racine, Wis., will help her company expand distribution.

"We are growing so quickly," said Nassif, who will continue to run Caldrea. "When you find a partner [like SC Johnson] that can help you scale, it's exciting for everyone."

The privately held company, which did not disclose sales figures, employs 50 people.

Founded in 1999, Caldrea specializes in high-end, nontoxic cleaning products such as dish liquid soap and wood furniture cream that contain "unified" scents including "Watercress Wild Lilly" and "Citrus Mint Yiang and Yiang." In other words, all the products in a fragrance category smell the same.

Caldrea-branded products are sold in 2,500 stores across the United States via speciality retailers such as Bachman's and Kowalski's Markets. Mrs. Meyer's, the company's more mass-market brand, can be found in Target and Festival Foods. The company also makes a private label line for Williams-Sonoma.

Nassif, a former nurse who moved to Minneapolis in 1981, was a marketing executive working for a variety of blue-chip clients when she found herself standing in a store in Atlanta staring at the soaps and cleansers and thinking, "I hate cleaning products."

Nassif has said she wanted to make cleaning products be more like cosmetics. In other words, when you put your hands into a cleaning product, why should that be different from putting your hands in shampoo?

Caldrea is named after Nassif's two daughters, Calla and Aundrea. Mrs. Meyer's owes its name to Nassif's mother, Thelma Meyer.

Kelly Semrau, a spokesperson for SC Johnson, said the company wanted to move beyond mass-market brands such as Windex and Pledge and to target higher-end customers.

Caldrea "is an exciting company," Semrau said. "They are on trend with a consumer we don't normally reach."

Thomas Lee • 612-673-7744