You Won’t Believe the Surprising Origins of Vaseline—Prepare to Be Shocked!

Ever wonder how a gooey jar of Vaseline became a staple in nearly every medicine cabinet, yet its origin story is as slippery and unexpected as the jelly itself? Well, strap in—this isn’t your grandma’s bedtime tale. Over 150 years ago, Robert Chesebrough, an English-born chemist with a sperm whale oil business on the fritz, stumbled upon a gritty little secret during America’s oil rush: oil workers were slathering a sticky residue from their drill rods on cuts and burns. Intrigued and, frankly, a bit desperate, Chesebrough spent a decade turning that grimy gunk into the miracle jelly we now swear by for everything from dry skin to nappy rash. And get this—he actually burned his own skin to prove it worked! Talk about dedication (or madness). If this quirky tale doesn’t make you look at that jar of Vaseline with fresh eyes, I don’t know what will. LEARN MORE

The creation of Vaseline is a slippery success story which dates back over 150 years.

A man once known as Robert Chesebrough was the inventor of the miracle goo in 1872. However, the actual inspiration behind Vaseline is far from what it’s primarily supposed to be used for today, as a skin protectant and moisturiser.

Rather than myself telling you what went down, I think QI host and comedian Sandi Toksvig does a better job.

In a clip shared on social media by the BBC, Toksvig tells the panel how the English-born chemist came up with the idea.

During a funny facts segment, the Danish-British broadcaster, 67, told the likes of Alan Davies, Zoe Lyons, Ignacio Lopez, and Rhod Gilbert, that it all started with the inventor’s sperm whale oil company, which went out of business.

Yep, it’s a niche, that’s for sure.

“It became less popular,” she said. “So there was a great oil rush in the United States, particularly in Pennsylvania in 1859, and that became the new thing.

“So he thought, ‘What am I going to do? My sperm whale oil thing is not going well. People are taking the p**s out of my name. There’s lots of things that I’ve got to deal with’.”

He spent a decade perfecting the process (Kinga Krzeminska/Getty stock photo)

But it was a trip to Pennsylvania that really changed the game for him, after he ‘noticed that the oil workers used the gunk that accumulated around the drill rods to heal cuts and burns’.

“And he spent 10 years perfecting a process to distill it into petroleum jelly, and he named it ‘Vaseline’ as a trademark in 1872 but he couldn’t get anybody to be interested.”

Toksvig explained that in an attempt to ramp up sales of his product, ‘he went on the road with a horse and cart selling these little one ounce jars of his wonder jelly’.

And to take things further, he even ‘burnt patches of his own skin’ to show how well the jelly worked.

“Before long, he was selling a jar a minute,” she added.

Jars of vaseline advertised as ‘designed to prevent nappy rash’ in 1964 (Chaloner Woods/Getty Images)

Over in the TikTok, people in the comments were pretty amazed by the story.

One person wrote: “Wow never knew that,” while others referred to it as ‘extraordinary’.

Well, according to the Vaseline website, the main uses of its petroleum jelly are:

· Protect minor cuts and burns

· Tackle dry skin patches

· Protect against external causes of dry skin

· Rejuvenate dull skin

· Hydrate your skin

· Soothe nappy rash

· Make your own lip scrub

· Create a dewy glow