Ring around the collar.

"Ring around the collar" is best known as a mid-20th-century American advertising catchphrase tied to laundry detergent marketing, referring to the dark, grimy band that can form on shirt collars from sweat, skin oils, and dirt. The line was popularized through television commercials that dramatized the embarrassment of visible collar stains and positioned a particular detergent as the solution. Because it functioned primarily as a slogan rather than a literary quotation, it circulated widely in popular culture and everyday speech, sometimes used humorously or metaphorically to suggest evidence of neglect, wear, or hidden grime.

Literally, the phrase names a common laundry problem: a discolored ring at the neckline of a shirt. Culturally, it became shorthand for domestic anxiety and social presentation—an emblem of how small, visible details can signal cleanliness, respectability, or care. In metaphorical use, it can imply that something seemingly proper has a telltale mark of contamination or that an underlying problem is showing at the edges. Its punchy, rhythmic wording helped it stick in memory, illustrating how advertising language can enter the vernacular and take on meanings beyond its original commercial intent.

“Ring around the collar!”
“Uh-oh… ring around the collar.”
“Ring-around-the-collar.”