From part of the Swadeshi movement to a popular name in Indian households, the story of Boroline, a tube that healed many!

The story of Boroline starts from before India's independence where businesspersons were quitting imports as agitation against the British government. Read the full story below.

It's an undeniable fact that time changes the outlook of brands for them to be able to uphold contemporary trends, fashion, and style. Hence, those sustaining with their traditional packaging styles are hard to be believed. But when it comes to Boroline, one has to believe this. The brand existing for the past 92 years has, till now, not changed its appearance because guess what? Their simple yet homely packaging has worked pretty well for them. However, the amazing part of the story of the Boroline brand is that it was started as part of the Swadeshi movement!

It is about the year 1929. There lived a Bengali businessman, Gour Mohan Dutta in Kolkata who was an importer of foreign goods. But as he joined the Swadeshi movement, he thought of producing substitutes for foreign products. This is when he established GD Pharmaceuticals to produce medicinal goods.

Out of the products he launched, the popularity enjoyed by Boroline made it the flagship product of the company which is still the case. After all, that fragrance of the cream does all the magic. The name Boroline was derived from its ingredients, 'Boro' from boric powder, which has antiseptic properties, and 'olin' as a variant of the Latin word oleum, meaning oil. So, now you know why is the cream oily and best suits dry skin?

However, Boroline also had other benefits, which made it an essential cream in various households. Some of them were its ability to heal sunburns, scars, and cracked heels. Made with the combination of boric powder, zinc oxide, essential oils, and paraffin, the Boroline, in no time, was a popular name in families, especially the Bengali families. This could be traced out in the black and white paper advertisements of Boroline, where the ads centered around Bengali families dressed in traditional clothes and celebrating festivals like Durga Puja.

"Hathiwala cream"

The bottle-green tube of Boroline contained the brand's logo, which was the face of an elephant. This was decided to depict the strength and power of the cream. You will be amazed to know, as per its official website, in many rural parts of our country, it is still known as the "hathiwala cream" (cream with the elephant logo).

The nice-smelling cream also associates itself with another anecdote which proved that the Boroline was a nationalist product! Yes, to celebrate the independence of Indian from British rule, the company had put the newspaper advertisements on August 15, 1947, saying that it was going to distribute free tubes and had given 1,00,000 Boroline tubes that day!

Though the manufacturing unit was located in Chakbagi in West Bengal initially, later, it was established at 8000 sq. ft. space in Mohun Nagar Industrial Area of Ghaziabad, Delhi NCR. However, the West Bengal unit is still operational with a floor area of 48,000 sq. ft. on a plot spread in 20 acres. The brand, in the past years, did not only please people with its qualities, but the company also provides financial aid to underprivileged patients.

While such heartwarming initiatives might have been one of the contributors to the success story of Boroline, all we know is it will continue spreading wonders through its fragrance in our lives!

Also Read: Meet Sohan Pappu from Vijayawada who makes organic sanitary napkins to distribute to rural women for free

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