P&G’s Products Research Expertise: Celebrating 100 Years of Business-Building Insights

Our Historic Past

P&G started as a company that made candles. Not just “any” candles; P&G candles were made of stearic acid. You may wonder why our candles were different. Was it cost or convenience of the ingredients? No. The reason for using stearic acid in our candles was the consumer! At that time, many candles were made of tallow, and, when exposed to heat in storage, they would melt and become misshapen. Not a great experience for the consumer. Knowing this, P&G set out to make a sturdier product, and found that stearic acid candles were less prone to melting before burning. They also burned brighter and had no objectionable smell (which tallow candles were known for).

This example shows the power of being in touch with our consumers, a practice so impactful the company formally dedicated a department to doing this work in 1923. The first products researchers at P&G were known as “Product Services,” and they were focused on promoting better and more scientific laundering of clothes. The team employed researchers who had knowledge of soap and chemistry to conduct technical product testing. Learning from the commercial laundry operations at the time, we sent thousands of standardized garments to be washed at laundromats across the country to ensure we could replicate results. Our chemists used those tests to understand how to improve our laundry soap to meet consumers’ needs.

This boundary-breaking work has led to household staples that have become part of our daily lives and still make a difference in our communities today. Consider these development highlights:

Products Research Over the Years