Q-Tips
March 8th, 2009It wasn’t exactly Archimedes and his Eureka Moment, but Leo Gerstenzang also found his best idea in a bathtub.
In Leo’s case, it was by watching his wife giving their baby a bath one day in 1923. To clean the baby’s ears, he noticed, Mrs. Gerstenzang twisted cotton swabs to the ends of toothpicks. This struck Leo, who just happened to own the Leo Gerstenzang Infant Novelty Co. in New York City, as a clever (if cumbersome and potentially dangerous) technique, and he decided to spend some time refining her invention.
Leo did spend quite a bit of time developing his little sticks, making sure the wood wouldn’t splinter and the cotton wouldn’t fall off (and lodge in baby’s ear), but finally he was satisfied and ready to market his swabs through his baby-care shop.
But first he needed a name for his new invention, and after some thought, came up with one.
One really odd, awful name, that is.
He called them “Baby Gays.”
Baby Gays sold well, but someone must have clued Leo into just how weird the name was, because within a couple of years he had changed it to “Q-Tip Baby Gays,” and finally simply “Q-Tips.” The “Q” is said to stand for “quality.” Today Q-Tips are churned out at the rate of 25.5 billion per year, but are not recommended by most pediatricians for use in babies’ (or anyone else’s) ears.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
The sad thing is that Q-Tip stopped making the wood stick swabs. They only offer the flimsy paper and the plastic sticks.
So now I order wood stick swabs from a less known company in China.
Sometimes it feels like companies find out what I like, and then stop selling them! No wonder nothing is made in America or Europe for that matter anymore.