the good life
Made in America: ChapStick Dr. Charles Browne Fleet—who invented ChapStick in 1889—may have been a gifted chemist, but he was far from a marketing master. One of his early ads for the balm read: “People who go out for recreation in July will become sunburned, more or less. They will please remember that ChapStick is the quickest and best remedy for it.” Twenty-three years after developing the formula in his Lynchburg, Virginia, drugstore, Fleet sold the recipe for just $5 to local businessman John Morton—who turned ChapStick into a successful brand that now generates $110 million yearly. Here’s how it all rolled out:
1919
John Morton and his wife, Florence, found the Morton Manufacturing Corp. to produce ChapStick—after seven years spent mixing, melting, and cutting the salve in their home kitchen.
1935
Frank Wright Jr., a Lynchburg-based artist, designs the ChapStick logo that’s still in use today. His fee? A flat $15.
1971
The first flavored sticks—cherry, strawberry, orange, and mint— debut. Nearly 40 years later, cherry ranks as the second most popular variety, behind the original “classic” blend.
1978
Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee glides into her role as “Suzy ChapStick,” the star of a popular series of commercials for the balm.
2010
Now manufactured by Pfizer in Richmond, Virginia, ChapStick boasts 22 varieties, including the brand’s newest flavors, mandarin and green tea mint. Reported by Jourdan Crouch
th e bes t way to spe nd
12.99
$ 22
Not to sound immodest, but this affordable, and ultra-flattering, floral art Apron from our own Km collection really cooks. om) (Available March 8; kmart.c
photograph by (chapstick) lara robby/studio d; (apron) ben goldstein/studio d
1972
ChapStick plays a starring role in the Watergate scandal after it’s revealed that Republican operatives used the tubes for concealing mini microphones during the infamous spy mission.