Historical information

In 1806, William Colgate, a soap and candle maker, opened up a starch, soap and candle factory on Dutch Street in New York City under the name of "William Colgate & Company". In the 1840s, the firm began selling individual cakes of soap in uniform weights. In 1857, William Colgate died and the company was re-organized as "Colgate & Company" under the management of Samuel Colgate, his son. In 1872, Colgate introduced Cashmere Bouquet, a perfumed soap. In 1873, the firm introduced its first toothpaste, an aromatic toothpaste sold in jars. His company sold the first toothpaste in a tube, Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream (invented by the dentist Washington Sheffield), in 1896. In 1896, Colgate hired Martin Ittner and under his direction founded one of the first applied research labs.[3] By 1908 they initiated mass selling of toothpaste in tubes.In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the B.J. Johnson Company was making a soap entirely of palm oil and olive oil, the formula of which was developed by B.J. Johnson in 1898. The soap was popular enough to rename their company after it - "Palmolive". Around the start of the 20th century Palmolive, which contained both palm and olive oils, was the world's best-selling soap. ). A Missouri-based soap manufacturer known as Peet Brothers merged with Palmolive to become Palmolive-Peet. In 1928, Palmolive-Peet bought the Colgate Company to create the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company. In 1953 "Peet" was dropped from the title, leaving only "Colgate-Palmolive Company", the current name.

Physical description

A metal cylinder with a screw top for a 'Colgate' shaving stick. Until the early 20th century, bars or sticks of hard shaving soap were used. Later, tubes containing compounds of oils and soft soap were sold. Newer creams introduced in the 1940s neither produced lather nor required brushes, often referred to as brushless creams.Soaps are used by wetting a shaving brush, which is made out of either boar hair or badger hair, and swirling the brush on the soap, then painting the face with the brush. Brushless creams do not produce a lather, thereby removing its ability to protect the skin against cuts.

Inscriptions & markings

Cylinder : COLGATE & CO. / SHAVING / STICK / NEW YORK / USA
Lid: C&C