[3] In 1896, the company sold the first toothpaste in a tube, named Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream (invented by dentist Washington Sheffield).

P&G introduced its Tide laundry detergent shortly after World War II, and thousands of consumers turned from Colgate's soaps to the new product.

[10] In the beginning of the TV era, Colgate-Palmolive wished to compete with P&G as a sponsor of soap operas and sponsored only two soap operas, The Doctors on NBC & ABC's One Life To Live from the shows debut in July 1968 until ABC bought One Life To Live from its creator Agnes Nixon in December 1974.

George Henry Lesch, president, CEO, and chairman of the board of Colgate-Palmolive in the 1960s and 1970s, transformed the firm into a modern company with major restructuring.

In 2020, Colgate-Palmolive acquired Hello Products LLC, one of the fastest-growing premium oral care brands in the United States, for an undisclosed amount.

[14] Today, Colgate has numerous subsidiary organizations spanning 200 countries, but it is publicly listed in three: the United States, India, and Pakistan.

[19] The Colgate Women's Games is the nation's largest amateur track series open to all girls from elementary school through college.

Finalists compete for trophies and educational grants-in-aid from Colgate-Palmolive Company at New York City's Madison Square Garden in February.

[28] Their involvement in this site may have contributed to the contamination of an estimated 18,500 cubic yards (14,100 m3) of soil with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PCBs, and lead off-site.

A proposed $23 million agreement with the government and state of New Jersey would require Colgate-Palmolive and the other involved companies to pay for the cleanup of this hazardous waste that is contaminating the soil as well as the groundwater.

[31] A 2021 report by Global Witness, updated in 2022, stated that Colgate-Palmolive had used palm oil suppliers connected to bribery, brutalisation of villagers and child labour in Papua New Guinea.

[32] In 2021, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) gave Colgate-Palmolive a score of "F" on their "scorecard" keeping track of deforestation and human rights abuses.

However, Ethical Consumer states that the company "published no standards for working hours and wages and no information about the outcomes of supply chain audits.

There was no clear mechanism workers could use to make anonymous complaints and raise issues", and scores badly in their human rights category.

[71] Major U.S. manufacturing and warehousing facilities used by the oral, personal and home care segment of Colgate-Palmolive were located in Morristown, New Jersey (previously the headquarters of the Mennen company prior to their 1991 buyout, and still HQ of the Mennen division) until 2014, when the plant shut down and moved operations to Hodges, South Carolina ; Morristown, Tennessee; and Cambridge, Ohio.

[71] Major overseas facilities used by the oral, personal and home care segment are located in Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Guatemala, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, Venezuela, Vietnam and elsewhere throughout the world.

Colgate-Palmolive has closed or is in the process of phasing out production at certain facilities under a restructuring program initiated in 2004 and has built new state-of-the-art plants to produce toothpaste in the U.S., Mexico and Poland.

[72][73] Colgate-Palmolive's chief manufacturing plant is located in Burlington Township, New Jersey, producing all of the fragrance and flavor oils for the company's facilities around the world.