ChapStick

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ChapStick

Product type	Lip balm
Owner	Yellow Wood Partners (private equity firm)
Country	United States
Introduced	Early 1880s
Previous owners	Wyeth Pfizer GSK Haleon
Website	chapstick.com

ChapStick is a

, hence the name. Many varieties also include sunscreen in order to prevent sunburn.

Due to its popularity, the term has become a

, with rights exclusively owned by Suave Brands Company.

History

In the early 1880s, Charles Browne Fleet,^[1] a physician and pharmacological thinker from Lynchburg, Virginia, invented ChapStick as a lip balm product. The handmade product, which resembled a wickless candle wrapped in tin foil, was sold locally and did not have much success.^[2]

In 1912, John Morton, also a Lynchburg resident, bought the rights to the product for five dollars. In their kitchen, Mrs. Morton melted the pink ChapStick mixture, cooled it, and cut it into sticks. Their lucrative sales were used to found the Morton Manufacturing Corporation.^[2]

In 1935,

In 1963, The A.H. Robins Company acquired ChapStick from Morton Manufacturing Corporation. At that time, only ChapStick Lip Balm regular stick was being marketed to consumers; subsequently, many more varieties have been introduced. This includes ChapStick four flavored sticks in 1971, ChapStick

Sunblock

15 in 1981, ChapStick Petroleum Jelly Plus in 1985, and ChapStick Medicated in 1992.

Robins was purchased by American Home Products (AHP) in 1988.[3] AHP later changed its name to Wyeth. ChapStick was a Wyeth product until 2009 when Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer. Pfizer sold the manufacturing facility in Richmond, Virginia, on October 3, 2011, to Fareva Richmond, which now manufactures and packages ChapStick for Pfizer.^[4]

In 2019,

In 2023, Suave Brands Company was created by Yellow Wood Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, to acquire the Suave brand from Unilever.[6] Suave Brands Company then acquired Chapstick from Haleon for $510m in January 2024. ChapStick generated $142m in revenue in 2023.^[7]

Composition

Ingredients commonly include

However, there are many variants of ChapStick, each with its own composition. Due to safety concerns, phenol is banned from use in cosmetic products in the European Union and Canada.

The full list of ingredients in a regular-flavored ChapStick is:

arachidyl propionate, camphor, carnauba wax, cetyl alcohol, D&C red no. 6 barium lake, FD&C yellow no. 5 aluminum lake, fragrance, isopropyl lanolate, isopropyl myristate, lanolin, light mineral oil, methylparaben, octyldodecanol, oleyl alcohol, paraffin, phenyl trimethicone, propylparaben, titanium dioxide, white wax, propanol.^[9] Its net weight is usually 4 grams (0.14 oz).

When manufactured by Wyeth, Chapstick contained no parabens.

Uses

ChapStick functions as both a

to relieve sore lips. In addition to medical uses, ChapStick has had other uses; the lubricating properties have been useful on precision instruments such as slide rules. Other lubricants, while appropriate to the instruments, might have been harmful to the skin, while ChapStick is not.

Marketing

charitable causes such as breast cancer awareness, in which 30¢ is donated for each stick sold (as in the Susan G. Komen

Pink Pack). The Flava-Craze line is marketed to preteens and young teens, with colorful applicators and "fun" flavors such as Grape Craze and Blue Crazeberry.

US Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee starred in ChapStick television commercials in which she dubbed herself "Suzy ChapStick". Another very famous ChapStick advertisement includes basketball legend Julius Erving (commonly known as Dr. J) naming himself Dr. ChapStick and telling young children about the great things that ChapStick can do.^[10]

United States Olympic Committee female skier of the year, was also a spokesperson for ChapStick.^[11] Former ski racer Picabo Street, for a time, was seen on television commercials as one of the company's endorsers.^[12]

Its main competitors in the

Blistex, also use the popular lipstick-style tube for their lip balm products. In Iceland and in the United Kingdom, the product's main competitor is Lypsyl, made by Novartis

Consumer Health and distributed in similar packaging to ChapStick.

References

1. ^ "THE STORY OF CHAPSTICK". ChapStick. Archived from the original on 2018-01-03.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Carpenter, Wanda (December 2015). "A Tinkering Pharmacist, an Artist, and 'The World's Smartest Investment'". Lynchburg Museum.
3. ^ "A.H. Robins Company - Virginia Historical Society A Guide to the A. H. Robins Company Records, 1885–2004". Archived from the original on 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2013-10-07.
4. ^ Sullivan, Heather (27 February 2012). "Fareva plans to expand and create more jobs".
5. ^ Josh Kolm (July 18, 2022). "GSK completes spin-off of consumer brands". Strategy Online. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
6. ^ Partners, Yellow Wood. "Yellow Wood Partners Portfolio Company Suave Brands Company Acquires ChapStick from Haleon". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
7. ^ "Haleon to Sell ChapStick to Suave Brands for $430 Million". Bloomberg.com. 2024-01-25. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
8. ^ Luciani, Jene (2013-05-15). "Can You Be Addicted to ChapStick?". Shape Magazine. Retrieved 2017-12-21.
9. ^ "LABEL: CHAPSTICK CLASSIC ORIGINAL- petrolatum stick". U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. September 2012.
10. ^ "Where Are They Now? Suzanne 'Suzy Chapstick' Chaffee, celebrity skier". 9 February 2006.
11. ^ "Disabled Ski Pioneer Diana Golden Dies - Skiing Magazine".
12. ^ Ettus, Samantha (October 27, 2011). "A Brand's Second Mistake: Where Does Lost Chapstick Go From Here?". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-12-21.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to ChapStick.

• ChapStick – Official website
• ChapStick UK Archived 2019-02-10 at the Wayback Machine – Official UK website
• The History of Chapstick