ChapStick

ChapStick is a brand name of 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. Its main competitors in the US, Carmex and Blistex, also use the popular lipstick-style tube for their lip balm products. In Iceland 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 1880s, Dr. Charles Browne Fleet, 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.