Cartoon stick figure pointing with a cotton swab towards a chalkboard with “Q-tips” written in large chalk letters — representing a blog post about the Q-tips word mark trademark registration.

Trademark: Q-tips

First Used: January 1926

First Registered: January 1934

Current Owner: ELIDA BEAUTY US (IP) LLC [1]

Trademark Type: traditional trademark; word mark; design mark

Primarily Associated With: absorbent swabs and balls for toiletry, medical and cosmetic uses [2]

Generic Phrase: cotton swabs, as in Q-TIPS® Brand cotton swabs

Also A Trademark For: swabs consisting of sanitary absorbent cotton, attached to the end of a small piece of wood [3]; cotton tipped applicators for medical purposes [4]; and cotton sticks for cosmetic purposes [5]

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [6]:

The Q-tips® brand originated in the 1920s when inventor Leo Gerstenzang observed his wife attaching bits of cotton to toothpicks to clean their baby's ears. Inspired, he developed a ready-made version and founded the Leo Gerstenzang Infant Novelty Company in 1923 to market the product as "Baby Gays." The name was later changed to “Q-tips Baby Gays,” before eventually being shortened to simply “Q-tips.” Why the “Q”? The "Q" stands for quality (and obvi the word "tips" describes the cotton swab at the end of the stick).

Despite being a relatively simple product, the Q-tips brand has undergone a number of improvements in the decades since release. In the 1980s, the brand transitioned to “100% cotton” for all Q-tips cotton swabs. In the late 1990s Q-tips antimicrobial cotton swabs were launched, and in the 2000s Q-tips cotton swabs switched to a plastic (PET) that is more environmentally friendly (and testing confirmed that Q-tips cotton swabs are biodegradable).

We know what you are thinking: “Why the Q? Why the Baby Gays!?” Here is what we found: it was first branded “Baby Gays” (back when the word gay was primarily a synonym for joyful/happy) because when it was used it “made cranky babies happy.”