Colgate-Palmolive

The Colgate-Palmolive Company, commonly known as Colgate-Palmolive, is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health care, personal care, and veterinary products.

William Colgate, an English immigrant to the United States and devout Baptist, established a starch, soap, and candle factory on Dutch Street in New York City under the name William Colgate & Company in 1806.

In 1833, he suffered a severe heart attack, stopping his business's sales; after a convalescence he continued with his business. In the 1840s, the company began selling individual cakes of soap in uniform weights. In 1857, Colgate died and the company was reorganized as Colgate & Company under the management of his similarly devout Baptist son Samuel Colgate, who did not want to continue the business but thought it would be the right thing to do. In 1872, he introduced Cashmere Bouquet, a perfumed soap.

In 1873, the company introduced its first Colgate toothpaste, an aromatic toothpaste sold in jars. In 1896, the company sold the first toothpaste in a tube, named Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream (invented by dentist Washington Sheffield). Also in 1896, Colgate hired Martin Ittner and under his direction founded one of the first applied research labs. By 1908, they initiated mass sales of toothpaste in tubes. Another of William Colgate's sons, James Boorman Colgate, was a primary trustee of Colgate University (formerly Madison University).

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the B. J. Johnson Company was making a soap from palm oil and olive oil, the formula of which was developed by Burdett J. Johnson in 1898. The soap was popular enough to rename their company after it in 1917—Palmolive. Around the start of the 20th century, Palmolive was the world's best-selling soap.

In June 1928, rumors started that "officials of the Palmolive-Peet Co. are negotiating to purchase the Colgate Co." privately held by the Colgate family. Peet Brothers Soap Company of Kansas City merged into Palmolive two years before the merger with Colgate. The merger combined the three oldest and largest soap and perfumery companies in the US and was effective July 1, 1928. The combined company was named the "Colgate Palmolive Peet Company". The combined pre-merger sales in 1927 of the three companies exceeded $100,000,000 (equivalent to $1,831,201,550 in 2024). The newly combined company had seven US manufacturing facilities as well as factories in 14 foreign countries. In 1953, the companies became a joint venture, known as the Colgate-Palmolive Company.

Colgate-Palmolive has long been in competition with Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world's largest soap and detergent maker and the maker of Crest toothpaste. P&G introduced its Tide laundry detergent shortly after World War II, and thousands of consumers turned from Colgate's soaps to the new product. Colgate lost its number one place in the toothpaste market when P&G added fluoride to its toothpaste Crest & Gleem (The Gleem brand was discontinued by P&G in 2014). Colgate has since re-claimed the #1 sales position. In the beginning of the TV era, Colgate-Palmolive wished to compete with P&G as a sponsor of soap operas and sponsored only two soap operas, The Doctors on NBC & ABC's One Life To Live from the shows debut in July 1968 until ABC bought One Life To Live from its creator Agnes Nixon in December 1974. They tried to keep the sponsorship of One Life To Live and gain sponsorship of Nixon's newest soap opera All My Children which ABC begin airing on January 5th of 1970 but ABC wouldn't allow it. However, The Doctors was sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive for its entire run from April 1963 until its cancellation in December 1982.

After The Doctors cancellation, Colgate-Palmolive never sponsored another show. P&G continued sponsoring several soap operas on all three networks until its last show As the World Turns was canceled in September 2010.