Launching a “home grown’ product into a major retailer like CVS is a newsworthy event. Special thanks to Jill Ditmire and our friends at WFYI 90.1 NPR – Indianapolis for this “drive time” interview. On this one. I actually do some playing!
Jill Ditmire: This is Jill Ditmire back with you at 5:44 on this Wednesday afternoon. Dan Gosling plays the trumpet for a living so it’s very important for him to put his money where his mouth is and he has done that in more ways than one. It’s okay to talk about it here on public radio. Dan joins us live in studio this afternoon. Welcome Dan!
Dan Gosling: Hi Jill. Thanks for having me.
Jill: You are a trumpet player and many people have seen you play with the symphony orchestra and other areas as well. About ten years ago you came up with a product that most people would never even think that a musician that plays a brass instrument might need.
Dan: This was quite random and by accident as it turned out. As you said I was playing professionally for, at that time, it would have been about 25 years in lots of different venues across central Indiana. Indianapolis Symphony. I was a principal trumpet of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra for many years. I also taught at Butler University for a few years. It was one of my Butler students who told me in a random conversation we were having one day about how he treated a lip injury with this herb called Arnica. He was in a marching band collision as it were so which is not a good thing if you’ve got a …
Jill: Doesn’t sound good.
Dan… a brass instrument up to your lips.
Jill: Very loud and probably very painful.
Dan: Yes. Someone ran into him. They weren’t sure where they were going at the time and he ended up with this horrible bruise on his lips. He healed it, treated it with this herb. As he’s telling me this story, I just kind of looked at him because I’d never heard of Arnica. He said, “Well it’s a natural anti-inflammatory. You can find it in any health food store. I said, “Really?” I literally the next day, I was looking for some Arnica. He told me where I could find it and I thought, “What if somebody incorporated that ingredient and made a better, we call it lip balm of course. Most people refer to it by a brand name, ChapStick®.
Jill: Yours is Gosling’s Original ChopSaver® Lip Care. It’s the Chops.
Dan: Chops, yes.
Jill: It’s kind of another musical term there.
Dan: Musicians call their lips their chops. We went around and when we all realized that I was kind of serious about doing this and I had now six weeks down the road from that initial conversation, I actually had a pretty cool formula. I had this stuff that I literally came up with in my kitchen. I was like a mad scientist just trying to come up with something. When I finally did, I started passing this around to my musician colleagues here in Indianapolis and every one of them said, “I don’t know what you’ve got in here but this is the best stuff I’ve ever used.”
Jill: It’s all natural, original.
Dan: Right. There’s all natural ingredients. It started with the Arnica. I started working with things like shea butter, avocado oil, grape seed oil, aloe. Things that I inherently knew were good for you but after I did some more research and actually did some consulting with an herbalist, and found other plant-based ingredients that were very therapeutic for your skin and for your lips, came up with this formula. Now it was, “Hey I think I’m serious about this. We’ve got to come up with a name for it.” We had dozens of names we kept. We kept coming back to ChopSaver. It just seemed like it hinted where it came from, the musical background. Any time we tried looking for something that had to do with lips on the internet – Google was a thing back then which is a great thing. I could do a lot of research rather quickly. When we looked for anything that had to do with lips, it took us to websites that you wouldn’t want kids going to. We decided we need to find something a little more…
Jill: You were able to get it into music stores at the time, and word of mouth and online but now it’s available in CVS stores across the country.
Dan: Yes it is.
Jill: You’re also going to be on Inside Indiana Business with Gary Dick this weekend too so people can check it out and see a little bit more. We’re running out of time here today but you’ve got your trumpet with you.
Dan: I do. I always happen to have it close by.
Jill: I think you’re going to play a little something for Carl on the way out.
Dan: Oh boy.
Jill: Congratulations. An entrepreneur from right here in Indianapolis. Good luck with that project.
Dan: Thank you. Check out your local CVS. You’ll find it there.
(Dan plays “Back Home Again in Indiana” under announcements)
