Started in a Kitchen Sink: Wisconsin Product Now Worldwide

The journey to worldwide success for one Wisconsin product actually started the way many great ideas do. There was a problem and no one else seemed to be fixing it.

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Listen to this “Slice of Wisconsin” here:

The solution actually started in a kitchen sink. It was 1937 and Alfred Woelbing needed relief for his chapped lips. He found store-bought products just didn’t do the trick. So Woelbing — armed with a creative background in cosmetics — decided to experiment in his Wauwatosa area home. What he created would eventually become Carmex, a name now recognized around the globe.

Creating a Product with Care and Craftsmanship

Woelbing’s early process 88 years ago was all about craftsmanship. He hand-filled every single opal glass jar, sealed it with a lid, and carefully applied a paper label. Woelbing sold each one for just 29 cents. This was a small-scale, hands-on, and entirely Wisconsin-based effort!

Production continued out of Woelbing’s kitchen until World War II briefly put things on pause. One of the key ingredients in Carmex is lanolin. It was diverted to help protect U.S. military equipment from rust. But when the war ended, Woelbing got right back to mixing up his batches of lip balm. This time, demand for his product grew quickly, and he had to move to a dedicated manufacturing space near his home.

A Growing Wisconsin Company

Woelbing didn’t just make the balm—he hustled it. He personally visited pharmacies, handing out samples with the goal of selling 20 dozen jars a day. By the early 1970s, the family business got a boost of fresh thinking when his son Don joined the company. And one of his ideas? Using a coffee maker to pour the lip balm! It finally replaced the painstaking tradition of hand-filling every jar.

The update also helped modernize production and sparked a rebrand with the bold yellow metal lid and the now-iconic Carmex logo. And even as the company grew, Woelbing stayed committed to a family-like workplace culture. Employees were treated as part of the team, not just the payroll. Carmex also began expanding into international markets and relocated to a new facility in Franklin, southwest of Milwaukee.

Manufactured in Wisconsin, Sold to 65 Countries

By the 1990s, Carmex had earned a worldwide reputation—and the title of the #1 pharmacist-recommended lip balm brand. The company continued to innovate, introducing the squeeze tube and later the lip balm stick.

Today, Carmex employs more than 250 people and has been recognized as a “Great Place to Work.” They’re now able to crank out 365 jars a minute and 500,000 products a day across the full line of jars, tubes, and sticks. The next generations of the Woelbing family are at the helm, and they’re carrying forward a culture rooted in care, craftsmanship, and state pride.

It’s a wonderful “Slice of Wisconsin” — and not bad for something that started with one guy, his kitchen, and some seriously chapped lips.