Profile

Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It specializes in the production, distribution and provision of household, health care, personal care and veterinary products. In 1806, devout Baptist English immigrant soap and candle maker William Colgate established a starch, soap, and candle factory on Dutch Street in New York City under the name William Colgate & Company. 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 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 . 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. William Colgate's other son, James Boorman Colgate, was a primary trustee of Colgate University .