In 1806, William Colgate, himself a soap and candle maker, opened up a starch, soap and candle factory on Dutch Street in New York City under the name of "William Colgate & Company".
In the 1840s, the firm began selling individual cakes of soap in uniform weights.
In 1857, William Colgate died and the company was reorganized as "Colgate & Company" under the management of Samuel Colgate, his son.
In 1872, Colgate introduced Cashmere Bouquet, a perfumed soap.
In 1873, the firm introduced its first toothpaste, aromatic toothpaste sold in jars.
In 1896, the firm sold the first toothpaste in a tube, Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream. Colgate also hired Martin Ittner and under his direction founded one of the first applied research labs.
In 1908, they initiated mass selling of toothpaste in tubes. His other son, James Boorman Colgate, was a primary trustee of Colgate University (formerly Madison University).
In 1898, In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the "B.J. Johnson Company" was making a soap entirely of palm and olive oil, the formula of which was developed by B.J. Johnson. The soap was popular enough to rename their company after it - "Palmolive".
In 1927, at the turn of the century Palmolive, which contained both palm and olive oils, was the world's best-selling soap, and extensive advertising included The Palmolive Hour.
A Kansas-based soap manufacturer known as the "Peet Brothers" merged with Palmolive to become Palmolive-Peet. In 1928, Palmolive-Peet bought the Colgate Company to create the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet