ChapStick
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ChapStick is a brand name for lip balm manufactured by Pfizer Consumer Healthcare and used in many countries worldwide. It is intended to help treat and prevent chapped lips, hence the name. Many varieties also include sunscreen in order to prevent sunburn.
Due to its popularity, the term has become a genericized trademark. It popularly refers to any lip balm contained in a lipstick-style tube and applied in the same manner as lipstick. However, the term is still a registered trademark, with rights exclusively owned by Pfizer. In Sweden and in the United Kingdom, the product's main competitor is Lypsyl, made by Novartis Consumer Health and distributed in similar packaging to ChapStick.
History
In the early 1890s, Dr. Charles Browne Fleet,[1] [verification needed] a physician and pharmacological thinker from Lynchburg, Virginia, invented ChapStick as a lip balm. The handmade product, which resembled a wickless candle wrapped in tin foil, was sold locally, and did not have much success.[citation needed]
In 1912, John Morton, also a Lynchburg resident, bought the rights to the product for five dollars. In their family 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.[citation needed]
In the early 1930s, Frank Wright, Jr., a commercial artist from Lynchburg, VA, was commissioned to design the CHET ChapStick logo that is still in use today. He was paid a flat fee of $15.[citation needed]
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 4 flavored sticks in 1971, ChapStick Sunblock 15 in 1981, ChapStick Petroleum Jelly Plus in 1985, and ChapStick Medicated in 1992. Skier Suzy Chaffee was a spokesperson for the brand in the 1970s. Former ski racer Picabo Street is commonly seen on television commercials as one of the company's endorsers.[citation needed]
Robins was purchased by American Home Products (AHP) in 1988.[2] 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, who now manufactures and packages Chap Stick for Pfizer.[citation needed]
Composition
Any given flavor of ChapStick may contain camphor, beeswax, menthol, petrolatum, phenol, vitamin E, aloe, and oxybenzone.[citation needed] However, there are hundreds of variants of ChapStick, each with its own composition.
The full list of ingredients in a regular-flavored ChapStick are as follows:
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.[citation needed] Its net weight is usually 4 g.
Uses
ChapStick functions as both a sunscreen, available with SPFs as high as 50, and a skin moisturizer/lubricant to help prevent and protect chafed, chapped, sunburned, cracked, and windburned lips. "Medicated" varieties also contain analgesics to relieve sore lips.
ChapStick tubes with hidden microphones played a role in the Watergate scandal.[3]
Marketing
ChapStick is sometimes available in special flavors developed in connection with marketing partners such as Disney (as in cross-promotions with Winnie the Pooh or the movie Cars) or with causes, such as Breast Cancer Awareness, in which 30¢ is donated for each stick sold,[4] (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 commercials on television in which she dubbed herself "Suzy ChapStick." Another very famous ChapStick advertisement includes basketball legend Julius Erving (AKA Dr. J) naming himself Dr. ChapStick and telling young children about the great things that ChapStick can do.[5]
References
External links
- ChapStick – Official website
- ChapStick UK – Official UK website
- The History of Chapstick