Ask for It by Name!

There are two different stories, one a bit goofy, the other perhaps a little too dignified, about the origin of the name “Vaseline,” the trade name of the petroleum jelly invented by Robert A. Chesebrough in 1870.

The goofy story is that Chesebrough, looking around for containers in which to store his invention, swiped a few of his wife’s flower vases. Once he decided that the time had come to name his new goo, he simply combined “vase” with the then-popular chemical suffix “line.”

The more somber, we-are-serious-scientists version eschews flower vases and credits Chesebrough with combining “Wasser,” the German word for water, with “elaion,” Greek for “oil.”

If this account is true, Chesebrough deserves even more credit for mixing the German and Greek and coming up with “Vaseline,” rather than “Wasserelaion,” which would have been the worst name since 7 Up was initially marketed under the name “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda.”

So take your pick of the two stories, but don’t use “Vaseline” as a generic term for petroleum jelly. It’s still a trademark of Unilever.

“I couldn’t believe God meant a woman’s brain to bring 50 cents on the dollar,” Mary Kay Ash once said, and she spent the second half of her life proving that she knew more about earning dollars than most men.

She had been born into poverty in Hot Wells, Texas, and supported herself and her children after World War II working for Stanley Home Products, organizing “Tupperware”-style home sales parties. Mary Kay proved so good at sales that she became the national training director for another direct sales company, but she eventually quit, frustrated that the men she trained were always promoted to positions above her.

In 1963, while developing an outline for the book on sales she was planning to write, Mary Kay realized that she could and should start her own company instead of just writing about it. Starting with just 11 sales reps selling her line of cosmetics in distinctive pink packaging direct to consumers, Mary Kay Ash built Mary Kay, Inc. into a global empire with annual revenues of $1.3 billion.

Oddly enough, Mary Kay is probably best known for something she never sold — cars. She bought her first Cadillac in 1968 and had the dealer repaint it her favorite color, pink. Recognizing the stir the car caused, she turned it into a motivational prize for her sales force, awarding a pink Cadillac sedan to any employee who achieved sales of $15,000 per month for six consecutive months.