Vaseline

Vaseline ( or ) is a brand of petroleum jelly based products owned by Anglo-Dutch company Unilever. Products include plain petroleum jelly and a selection of skin creams soaps, lotions, cleansers, deodorants and personal lubricants. Vaseline also has body lotion and Vaseline Intensive Care.

It has been considered generic in some countries of Latin America like Mexico, Chile and Brazil in regards to goods from class 3, where the Unilever products are called Vasenol.

History

The first known reference to the name Vaseline was by the inventor of petroleum jelly, Robert Chesebrough in his U.S. patent for the process of making petroleum jelly (U.S. Patent 127,568) in 1872. "I, Robert Chesebrough, have invented a new and useful product from petroleum which I have named Vaseline...".

The word is believed to come from German Wasser (water) + Greek έλαιον (oil)+ scientific-sounded ending -ine.

In 1859, Chesebrough went to the oil fields in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and learned of a residue called "rod wax" that had to be periodically removed from oil rig pumps. The oil workers had been using the substance to heal cuts and burns. Chesebrough took samples of the rod wax back to Brooklyn, extracted the usable petroleum jelly, and began manufacturing the medicinal product he called Vaseline.The History of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly began in the Pennsylvania Oil Fields!, Drake Well Museum pamphlet, copyright 1996 by Holigan...
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