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Church & Dwight Co., Inc.

Church & Dwight makes and sells everyday household and personal care products, from baking soda to condoms.

Church & Dwight is a company that sells stuff you probably already have in your bathroom or kitchen. It makes personal care items like condoms, pregnancy tests, and toothpaste, plus household products like laundry detergent and cat litter. The company splits itself into three main parts: consumer products (the overwhelming majority of sales), specialty products for industrial uses, and a small international business. Its biggest brand by far is Arm & Hammer, the baking soda that somehow became a whole family of products—deodorant, toothpaste, laundry detergent, cat litter. Other well-known names include Trojan condoms, OxiClean stain remover, and Batiste dry shampoo. Think of it as the quiet giant of drugstore shelves: you might not know the company name, but you almost certainly own something it makes.

So how does it actually make money? It sells these products through supermarkets, drugstores, big-box retailers like Walmart, and online. Customers—regular people like you and me—pay a few dollars per item, and the company keeps a slice after paying for ingredients, manufacturing, and marketing. The specialty products segment sells things like sodium bicarbonate for industrial uses, animal feed, and cleaning solutions for hospitals and food plants. That part is smaller but steady. The international arm sells the same consumer brands in other countries. Roughly 80% of revenue comes from the US consumer segment, with international and specialty making up the rest. The business is boring in the best way: people keep buying toothpaste and detergent no matter what the economy does.

Church & Dwight has grown partly by buying other brands—like OxiClean, Batiste, and more recently Hero Cosmetics (acne patches) and ThermaCare (heat wraps). These acquisitions let it plug new products into its existing relationships with retailers. The company generates a lot of spare cash, which it uses to pay dividends, buy back shares, and fund more acquisitions. It's not a flashy growth story, but it's a reliable one. The stock does well when investors want safety and steady dividends. If you're looking for a business that sells the unglamorous essentials and keeps chugging along, this is it.

Saved answer · last researched 14 Oct 2026