The History of Tom's of Maine

Tom and Kate at the Tom's of Maine 35th anniversary celebration, in Oct. 2005 at Laudholm Farms in Wells, ME.

In 1968, Tom and Kate Chappell left Philadelphia and corporate America to move to rural Kennebunk, Maine. As part of their goal to "move back to the land," they used natural, unprocessed foods and simple, unadulterated products. Unable to find natural personal care products for themselves and their children, they decided to create and sell their own.

With a $5,000 loan from a friend, Tom and Kate began making products for home use that would not harm the environment. Our initial product, Clearlake, was the country's first non-phosphate liquid laundry detergent. The refillable containers were labeled with a postage-paid mailer so that our customers could send them back to be reused. From the start, our company grew and developed into a "different kind of company" based on the belief that people and nature deserve respect.

During our first five years the company's product line graduated from non-phosphate laundry detergent to natural personal care products. In 1975, we premiered the first natural toothpaste on the market. Shortly after Kate gave birth to Eliza, we developed the first natural baby shampoo. Natural deodorant, mouthwash, and shaving cream soon followed.

By 1983, Tom's of Maine was well established in the health food channel with annual sales fast approaching $2 million. In order to grow, however, Tom realized we would need to distribute through supermarket and drug store chains. Progressive Distributors and CVS were the first to agree to stock Tom's of Maine next to the "big name brands," and today many additional drug and food chains show strong support for the company's vision.

Our success in the mass market hasn’t made us lose sight of our strong health food heritage, however. While growing American awareness of health issues has supported the successful "mainstreaming" of several natural brands, it has also provided for explosive growth in the health food retail channel. It is important to us to work closely with our health food retail partners because we are stakeholders in each other’s success.

All of our products are made with the highest quality natural ingredients. Our products are safe and effective thanks to our advanced non-animal testing methods and reliance on ingredients based on plants and herbs. For example, we use hops in our deodorant to control odor, pure flavor oils in our oral care products, and a mixture of rosemary and Vitamin C as a natural preservative for our bar soap.

Just as important as what we put in is what we leave out—artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, preservatives, and animal products. For example, our toothpastes contain no saccharin, our mouthwashes no alcohol, and our soaps no EDTA.

Our company has grown a lot since 1970! In 2006, we entered into a partnership with the Colgate-Palmolive Company (read Tom and Kate's letter explaining how and why this decision was made) and are now an independently run division of that company. But nothing else has changed. Tom and Kate remain CEO and vice president, and our approach remains simple and direct. We listen to what our customers want (and don't want) in their products, we learn how it can be done, and we respond with intelligent natural alternatives.

To learn more about some notable moments in Tom's of Maine history, take a look at our company timeline.

The Chappell family at the Tom's of Maine 35th anniversary celebration, 2005:
(left to right) Chris, Sarah, Matt, Kate, Tom, and Luke
(not pictured: Eliza)


The Chappell family in the early 1990s:
Matt, Chris, Tom (back)
Luke, Kate, Sarah, Eliza (front)


Tom Chappell with just some of the Clearlake bottles
that were returned through the mail.