Fragrance house

Leeming-Pfizer

Leeming-Pfizer was a fragrance and personal-care operation within Pfizer, rather than a separately documented independent perfume house. Pfizer bought the Leonard Leeming Company in 1961; the business made personal-care items and was later renamed Leeming/Pacquin. As part of Pfizer’s consumer health and beauty business, the division appeared alongside brands such as Barbasol, Ben Gay, and Visine. Its fragrance history includes Hai Karate, developed by Pfizer’s Leeming division and launched in 1967 as a men’s aftershave and cologne. Hai Karate’s late-1960s advertising used a hyper-masculine comic scenario in which a mild-mannered man defended himself from a woman drawn to his aftershave, ending in a karate stance. Leeming also released Black Belt in 1968, Skinny Dip in 1970, and Roman Brio in 1972; Skinny Dip was offered in original, lemon, and strawberry variants. In 2006, Pfizer agreed to sell its Consumer Healthcare business to Johnson & Johnson, with the transaction completed on December 20; Johnson & Johnson’s history records the acquisition as bringing Pfizer heritage consumer brands into Johnson & Johnson.