The Storied History of Brown’s Foot Bath

Origins in Wartime California (1943)

In the midst of World War II, North Hollywood, California was an unlikely birthplace for a foot care revolution. It was 1943, and two enterprising footwear retailers – including company founder Denis T. Crowley – decided to tackle a common problem they saw every day: customers hobbled by hardened calluses and aching feet. Leather-soled shoes of the era were tough on feet, and long workdays often left people with sore, cracked skin. Crowley and his partner (one of whom lent his own name "Brown" to the product) began experimenting with a special foot-soaking powder in the backroom of a shoe shop. Rationing was in effect, so fancy ingredients were out of the question – they tinkered with simple, time-tested compounds like Epsom salts and boric acid, hoping to find the perfect recipe to soothe battered soles. By late 1943, after much trial and error (and plenty of after-hours foot-soaking sessions among friends), they perfected Brown’s Original Medicated Foot Bath, along with a companion product called Brown’s Foot Duster, under the newly formed Foot Aid Laboratory brownsfootbath.com. The foot bath powder and the foot duster (a talcum-like drying powder) were an instant hit among those “in the know,” offering relief in an age before modern pedicure spas or high-tech insoles.

At a time when much of American industry was focused on the war effort, Crowley and Brown’s humble foot remedies quietly served a different kind of foot soldier – the factory worker, the cop on the beat, the nurse on a double shift. The Foot Aid Laboratory operated out of a tiny facility in North Hollywood, mixing batches of powder by hand and packaging them for local distribution. The brand name carried a friendly, trustworthy ring: “Brown’s” sounded reassuringly ordinary – like the neighbor down the street with good advice. In an era when every commodity was precious, the creators even deliberately kept the price of a tin affordable so that anyone could tend to their tired feet at home. This unpretentious approach would define Brown’s Foot Bath for decades to come.

Brown’s Foot Bath was a wartime baby, born in an era of rationing and resourcefulness. Yet it arrived with a distinct personality and a promise of relief. Early packaging touted the treatment as a cure for virtually every foot ailment under the sun – from corns and callouses to the dreaded “bromidrosis” (a polite term for smelly feet)etsy.com. The product’s namesake, R.E. Brown of Glendale, California, acted as distributor, helping spread the word beyond Los Angelesetsy.com. The tin cans proudly declared “Over 25 years of quality” (a slogan added in later decades as the remedy proved its staying power) and even offered a money-back guarantee. If after three or four foot baths results fail to please, the label assured, return the unused portion…for a refund of the full purchase pricebrownsfootbath.com. In an age of door-to-door salesmen and radio jingles, Brown’s Foot Bath instead relied on straightforward guarantees and undeniable results.

Vintage Brown’s Foot Bath packaging (mid-century tin). The label promises relief for “Corns, Callouses, Athletes Foot” and other woes, reflecting the product’s broad aims in its early yearsetsy.com.

Post-War Growth and Word-of-Mouth (1940s–1950s)

As the war wound down, word of the remarkable foot soak spread beyond Southern California. Soldiers returning home sometimes brought a tin with them to share with family, and traveling salesmen would swap tips about the latest comfort products. By 1948, Brown’s Foot Bath was quietly making its way up and down the West Coast. A shoe store in San Francisco reportedly began ordering crates of the stuff after a customer from Los Angeles wouldn’t stop raving about it. Even without formal advertising, demand grew in pockets: a pharmacist in Portland heard about it from his cousin in L.A. and started stocking a few tins behind the counter; a cobbler in Chicago wrote directly to Foot Aid Laboratory to request a shipment after hearing a rumor of a “miracle foot cure.” In each case, the pattern was the same – someone tried Brown’s, loved it, and told everyone around them.

When peace returned and the post-war boom hit California, Brown’s Foot Bath found its footing (so to speak) in the market through pure word of mouth. Foot Aid Laboratory was a small operation, but its two flagship products earned a reputation for quality and effectiveness. Returning GIs and factory workers alike soaked their weary feet in the medicated baths, praising how it “softens, soothes, and exfoliatesbrownsfootbath.com” the toughest layers of dead skin. Doctors and podiatrists weren’t prescribing it – this was a folk remedy spread largely by satisfied customers and old-school “shoe dogs” (seasoned shoe salesmen) who knew the value of happy feet. Local shoe stores in Southern California began stocking Brown’s Foot Bath as a niche item to keep their clientele comfortable in their new loafers and stilettos.

By the mid-1950s, the gospel of Brown’s Foot Bath had traveled halfway across the country by personal recommendation alone. One notable early adopter was Chiappetta Shoes, a family-run shoe store in Kenosha, Wisconsin that had been serving customers since 1921. Legend has it that one of the Chiappetta family members encountered Brown’s Foot Bath at a trade show or through a traveling salesman and brought a case back to Kenosha. The “magic powder” from California soon became a quiet hit with their Midwestern customers suffering from callused, cracked heels. Decades before e-commerce or viral ads, Chiappetta Shoes was shipping tins of Brown’s Foot Bath to farmers, factory workers, and families across Wisconsin – all based on loyal word-of-mouth. The Chiappetta family became lifelong true believers in the product, selling it continuously from the 1950s onward. Little did they know that this humble foot soak would eventually become part of their own company’s story.

Chiappetta Shoes Discovers a Hidden Gem

The best marketing for Brown’s Foot Bath in Kenosha was simply the results it delivered. Chiappetta Shoes’ second generation owners – led by Pasquale’s son, Tony Chiappetta Sr. – kept the tradition going through the 1960s and ’70s. They’d routinely hear customers ask, “You still carry that foot bath powder?”, to which the staff would proudly retrieve a tin from the stockroom. Over the years, it became almost a rite of passage in the Kenosha area: if you bought sturdy work boots or orthopedic shoes at Chiappetta’s, you’d likely go home with a can of Brown’s Foot Bath as well, courtesy of a friendly recommendation. The Chiappettas themselves used it at home, too – a secret weapon against Wisconsin winters that left skin dry and chapped. This long-running relationship between retailer and product was so unique that by the 2000s, Brown’s Foot Bath had practically become synonymous with the Chiappetta name in their community. (As Nick Chiappetta would later joke, “We were selling Brown’s so long, some customers thought we invented it!”) In reality, the Chiappettas were simply great champions of a great product – a partnership of trust that set the stage for an even deeper connection decades later.

The partnership between Brown’s Foot Bath and Chiappetta Shoes is the stuff of local lore. Pasquale “Patsy” Chiappetta, the founder of the Kenosha shoe store (and an Italian immigrant with a keen eye for quality), was always on the lookout for products that could keep his customers walking happy. Sometime in the mid-50s, he gave Brown’s Foot Bath a trial run in the shop. The results spoke for themselves: customers came back asking for more of that “wonderful foot soak.” Chiappetta Shoes soon became one of the few retailers outside California consistently stocking the foot bath and its companion foot powder. Selling a foot remedy from sunny Los Angeles in the heart of America’s Dairyland might sound odd, but by all accounts it fit like a glove (or perhaps a sock). The Chiappettas would demonstrate the foot bath to skeptical customers, often joking that “it smells medicinal, but boy does it work.” Over time, Brown’s Foot Bath acquired a sort of cult status in Kenosha – quietly passed from one aching-footed customer to the next, never advertised, but always in demand. This early cross-country success hinted at the product’s potential longevity and foreshadowed the deeper role the Chiappetta family would play years later.

Steadfast Through the Decades (1960s–1990s)

As the 1960s and 1970s rolled on, Brown’s Foot Bath remained true to its origins. While fashions in footwear changed – from saddle shoes to platform shoes – the formula in the Brown’s Foot Bath canister never did. Foot Aid Laboratory, still a modest business, saw no need to tamper with success. After all, the product had been “not changed one bit” since 1943 and “still works extremely well” decades laterbrownsfootbath.com. Customers knew exactly what they were getting each time they opened a fresh tin: the same slightly antiseptic aroma of Epsom salts, boric acid, and salicylic acid that their parents or even grandparents swore by. The company’s commitment to consistency became a point of pride.

By the 1960s, America was moving fast – NASA was reaching for the moon and rock ’n’ roll was on the radio – but Brown’s Foot Bath remained comfortingly unchanged. If you opened a can in 1965, the powder inside looked and smelled just as it did in 1945. This consistency became a selling point in its own right. “They don’t make ’em like they used to – except for this,” quipped one customer, marveling that the same remedy his mother used on him as a child was now helping his own children’s callused feet. Indeed, Brown’s Foot Bath quietly bridged generations.

Advertising remained low-key. Instead of glossy magazine spreads, Brown’s Foot Bath popped up in small newspaper ads and local drugstore promotions. An observer flipping through an Idaho newspaper in 1991, for example, might stumble on a quaint advertisement for a Twin Falls pharmacy extolling the virtues of Brown’s Foot Bath. In plain text, that ad promised the foot bath “will eliminate dead skin tissue that often accompanies corns and callouses…offering cleansing, cooling foot relief”archive.org – a tagline virtually unchanged from the 1940s. It also reminded shoppers that Brown’s Foot Duster (the companion powder) was “also available”archive.org. Such ads, though rare, reinforced what loyal customers already knew: this stuff worked. Meanwhile, in Kenosha, Chiappetta Shoes kept right on selling Brown’s Foot Bath to a third generation of customers, its reputation in Wisconsin as solid as ever.

Brown’s Foot Duster: The Forgotten Sidekick – While the Foot Bath got most of the limelight, Brown’s Foot Duster was the trusty sidekick. Essentially a medicated foot powder, it was designed to be sprinkled on the feet (and into shoes or socks) to keep them dry, cool, and odor-free. Back in the day, before modern antiperspirant sprays for feet existed, the Foot Duster offered a way to combat perspiration and “athlete’s foot” fungus on a daily basis. Sales of Foot Duster never quite matched the soak – perhaps because a relaxing foot bath held a special allure – but those who used the powder swore by it. Shoe store owners often noted that one tin of Foot Bath would lead to a repeat customer, and one satisfied customer would often come back to buy the Foot Duster to complete the regimen. The two products were formulated to complement each other: soak to treat and soften, dust to protect and maintain. Over the years, the Foot Duster maintained a small yet devoted following (Chips Chiappetta recalls using it in his football cleats as a teenager to ward off odor). Today, Chiappetta Laboratory continues to produce Brown’s Foot Duster in its original formulation, preserving that one-two punch of foot care that Crowley and Brown envisioned in 1943.

Internally, the Foot Aid Laboratory carried on like a family secret shared among friends. Denis T. Crowley, the founder, guided the company well into the later 20th century. It wasn’t a multinational corporation or a household name, but within its niche it was legendary. It’s worth noting that the broader foot care market saw many products come and go in these decades. From fizzing foot soaks to menthol gels, new remedies made splashy claims in TV commercials. Yet, Brown’s Foot Bath survived all the trends without a single jingle. Its reputation lived in the words of nurses, construction workers, dancers – anyone whose feet took a beating. While Dr. Scholl’s and others became household names, Brown’s quietly carved out a loyal niche that didn’t care about branding or advertising – they cared that it worked. In a sense, Brown’s Foot Bath was ahead of its time by staying behind the times: it didn’t chase fads, and that authenticity resonated with people.

Crowley’s dedication to quality control meant that even as production scaled modestly to meet demand in other states, he refused to alter ingredients or outsource manufacturing. Old-timers in the industry have joked that Crowley must have had a stockpile of 1940s-era mixing equipment because the product coming out in 1990 was indistinguishable from the one mixed during WWII. And indeed, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” could have been the unofficial motto at Foot Aid Lab. Under Crowley’s stewardship, Brown’s Foot Bath quietly marched through the Cold War, the disco era, and the dawn of the computer age, all while easing the foot pain of anyone lucky enough to snag a tin.

A New Steward in Sacramento (2000s)

The handover from the Crowley family to Richard Wood was as amicable as it was unpublicized. By this point, Denis Crowley was elderly and had stepped back, and it fell to his family (notably his daughter Mary Lou) to ensure the business found a good new home. Richard Wood, a long-time Sacramento-based customer who had first encountered Brown’s Foot Bath decades prior, stepped forward. Some say Wood’s first experience with Brown’s was in the 1970s when a foot-sore friend gave him a tin – an encounter he never forgot. Whatever the case, Wood understood the product’s value and promised the Crowleys he would keep their tradition going strong. In the early 2000s he officially took the reins, quietly moving the operation north to California’s capital region.

By the turn of the millennium, after five and a half decades, the original generation behind Brown’s Foot Bath was ready to hang up their boots. In the early 2000s, ownership of Foot Aid Laboratory passed to Richard Wood, a businessman from Sacramento, California. Wood had a simple mission: keep the Brown’s Foot Bath tradition alive and well for a new era. For approximately twenty years, Richard Wood acted as the guardian of this old-fashioned remedy. He relocated operations to the Sacramento area – the company’s address in those years became Elk Grove, CA – but otherwise changed remarkably little. Longtime customers likely never noticed the handover; the labels still said Brown’s Foot Bath, the powder inside was still the same beige hue, and the results were as dependable as ever. If anything, Wood’s tenure was marked by a gentle attempt to nudge the brand into slightly broader awareness without losing its homespun charm.

One of Wood’s notable contributions was bringing Brown’s Foot Bath into the digital age. He set up a rudimentary website and an email contact (no more relying solely on snail mail and phone orders), marking the brand’s first step onto the internet. Longtime customers who stumbled upon brownsfootbath.com in the 2000s were delighted to see their beloved product holding its own in the dot-com era – albeit in a simple, information-focused site. Wood also explored partnerships with a few regional distributors, hoping to get Brown’s onto more store shelves. A handful of Ace Hardware stores in Northern California, for instance, began carrying Brown’s Foot Bath in their foot care aisle, introducing it to DIY-inclined customers fixing up their homes (and soaking their tired feet afterward). But Wood was careful not to overextend; he knew the strength of Brown’s Foot Bath lay in its authentic niche appeal.

During these years, the product’s devoted fanbase remained as loyal as ever. Brown’s Foot Bath continued to be stocked by small shoe stores and specialty retailers who had carried it for ages – Chiappetta Shoes foremost among them. The Chiappetta family had now sold Brown’s Foot Bath for nearly half a century, a testament to the powder’s effectiveness and the personal relationships behind it. Richard Wood made sure that Chiappetta Shoes (and other mom-and-pop shops from California to the Midwest) got their shipments, maintaining the same phone number and even the same old-school customer service ethos that Foot Aid Laboratory was known for. New customers also discovered Brown’s during this time, sometimes stumbling on it in a corner of an independent pharmacy or ordering it out of a small catalog. In an age when foot care was becoming increasingly high-tech – with gel insoles and battery-powered foot spas – Brown’s Foot Bath stood its ground as a refreshingly simple, proven remedy.

It was during Wood’s tenure that the bonds with loyal retailers like Chiappetta Shoes grew even stronger. He made a point of personally calling Chips Chiappetta from time to time to ask how the product was selling and if their customers had any feedback. This kind of attentive service was straight out of the old Foot Aid Lab playbook – and the Chiappettas appreciated it. In fact, by the 2010s, Chips and Nick often told Wood, half-jokingly, “If you ever want to sell the company, call us first.” Everyone laughed at the time, but those conversations planted a seed that would come to fruition later.

If there was any challenge during Wood’s stewardship, it was simply that Brown’s Foot Bath remained a well-kept secret. Its growth was steady but modest; this was never a product with Super Bowl commercials. And perhaps that was for the best. Wood often acted less like a CEO and more like a curator in a museum of foot care, preserving the legacy he’d been entrusted with. By the late 2010s, however, Wood began considering retirement. The question loomed: who would be the next in line to take over this storied product and ensure its legacy continued? The answer, it turned out, was waiting in the wings in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

A Family Affair in Kenosha (2021 – Present)

In August 2021, Brown’s Foot Bath found its way back to the family who had championed it for so long. Anthony “Chips” Chiappetta and Nick Chiappetta, brothers and co-owners of Chiappetta Shoes, acquired the company from Richard Wood – bringing the brand under their wing and rebranding the business as Chiappetta Laboratory LLC. After nearly 80 years, the little foot soak from North Hollywood was now officially in the hands of a Midwestern family that had believed in it since Eisenhower was president. The transfer of ownership in 2021 was more than a business deal – it felt like a homecoming. The Chiappetta brothers flew out to California to meet Richard Wood and finalize the agreement, bringing with them boundless enthusiasm (and perhaps an empty suitcase or two to fill with as many Brown’s Foot Bath tins as they could carry back). There, in Wood’s warehouse surrounded by sacks of powder and packaging materials, the old guard and the new guard shook hands. The moment was emotional: Wood, having faithfully tended the brand for two decades, was entrusting it to two young men whose lives had been touched by the product since childhood. For the Chiappettas, it was both a culmination of years of passion and the start of an exciting new chapter. They honored the occasion by taking a photo together – Wood and the Chiappetta brothers standing before pallets of Brown’s Foot Bath – a symbolic passing of the torch from one generation of caretakers to the next.

Renaming Foot Aid Laboratory to Chiappetta Laboratory LLC was a deliberate choice. The brothers wanted to put their family name on the business (a mark of how personal this venture was to them), but they also kept the word “Laboratory” as a nod to the company’s heritage. After all, the original Foot Aid Laboratory had concocted the formula, and Chips and Nick saw themselves as inheritors of that inventive, problem-solving spirit. They even joke that their grandfather Pasquale – a cobbler by trade – would be tickled to know the family now runs a “lab.” Within days of the acquisition, the Chiappettas moved inventory and equipment to Kenosha, setting up a small production area in their existing facilities. It wasn’t exactly a high-tech pharmaceutical plant – more like a well-organized workshop where they could blend and package Brown’s Foot Bath with the same hands-on care it always had.

Chiappetta Laboratory LLC is the proud new owner and manufacturer of this storied product, and the brothers wasted no time sharing their excitement with the worldfacebook.com. For Chips Chiappetta, the new role was especially meaningful. As he often shares with a chuckle, he practically grew up with his feet immersed in Brown’s Foot Bath. Plagued by hyperhidrosis (excessive foot sweating) and chronic heel fissures as a teenager, Chips found relief by regularly using the foot bath his family sold in their store. In his own words, “I’ve probably soaked in more Brown’s Foot Bath than anyone who isn’t an actual shoemaker!” Now, as an adult, he has the chance to steer the very brand that kept him footloose and fancy-free in his youth. That personal connection infuses the new Chiappetta Laboratory with an extra dose of passion. The company may have a new name and new leadership, but its mission remains true to its roots. “Don’t change the formula, just introduce it to more people,” has been the guiding mantra of the Chiappetta brothers since 2021.

True to their word, the Chiappettas immediately started doing “great things” with Brown’s Foot Bath. They reached out to fellow independent shoe retailers and foot care specialists across the country, proudly reintroducing the product. Some, like Mar-Lou Shoes in Ohio, eagerly came on board – delighted to stock a foot soak with such a storied background (Mar-Lou even posted on social media about how excited they were to carry Brown’s Foot Bath). The brothers also ramped up online sales through their Chiappetta Shoes website and Amazon, bringing this old-fashioned remedy to the digital doorstep of customers nationwide. All of this was done carefully, scaling up supply to meet rising demand without cutting corners.

For Chips and Nick, the company’s revival also carried a sense of personal vindication: the foot bath they had trusted and sold for so many years was now their company to grow. Nick Chiappetta, meanwhile, focuses on the operational side – managing production logistics and ensuring every batch meets the strict quality standards set forth since 1943 – while Chips serves as the chief evangelist of the brand, always ready to talk anyone’s ear off about the benefits of a good foot soak. Between the two of them, they cover both the heart and the science of the business.

The acquisition even garnered local media attention in Kenosha; after all, it’s not every day that a hometown shoe store becomes the owner of a national heritage brand. Customers old and new sent congratulations, and some long-time Brown’s Foot Bath users in Wisconsin confessed they never realized the product wasn’t already a Chiappetta family recipe! The good-humored Chips responded that in a way it always has been – not by invention, but by adoption and love.

A Personal Connection and a Mission for the Future

Under the Chiappetta brothers’ stewardship, the core values of Brown’s Foot Bath are not only preserved but celebrated. The culture at Chiappetta Laboratory is a blend of old-school and new-school, much like the product itself. Their guiding principles moving forward can be summarized as follows:

The original formula remains sacrosanct. No ingredient changes, no unnecessary additives – just the same proven mix that’s worked since 1943.

Chiappetta Laboratory upholds the classic money-back guarantee and emphasizes personal customer service. Every buyer, whether a small store or an individual online, is treated like part of the Brown’s Foot Bath family.

Through blogs, videos, and in-store demos, the company aims to teach people about foot health and how to use the foot bath effectively. This echoes the product’s grassroots history – educated customers spreading the word.

The Chiappettas are keenly aware of the legacy they hold. They maintain a sense of stewardship (Chips often refers to himself as the product’s “caretaker”). At the same time, they embrace innovation in distribution and community-building, ensuring Brown’s Foot Bath will be helping sore feet for generations to come.

Yet in the day-to-day, the vibe at Chiappetta Laboratory remains light-hearted and familial. The brothers mix batches of Brown’s Foot Bath with the same formula from 1943, joking that the secret ingredient is “a pinch of Chiappetta love.” They’ve refreshed the packaging with a nod to retro design, ensuring the nostalgic charm isn’t lost on longtime users even as it catches the eye of new customers browsing store shelves or scrolling online. They also continue to cultivate the relationships with retailers that have been the lifeblood of the brand. In fact, Chiappetta Shoes – the very store that carried Brown’s for so many years – is now effectively the home base for the brand, and the brothers are eager to partner with other independent shoe stores and boutiques across the country. As they put it, scaling up Brown’s Foot Bath doesn’t mean turning it into a faceless mass-market product; it means scaling up the community of people who appreciate a darn good foot soak.

The mission of Chiappetta Laboratory is simple: keep people on their feet – literally and figuratively. They aim to honor Denis Crowley’s and R.E. Brown’s legacy by maintaining the same standard of excellence that started in that wartime shoe shop in 1943. At the same time, they embrace innovation in reaching customers, whether through a user-friendly e-commerce experience or fun how-to videos demonstrating the foot bath (“rub-a-dub-dub, two feet in a tub,” as one playful demonstration was captioned). The company culture encourages this blending of humor and expertise. Employees (many of whom are longtime Chiappetta Shoes staff or family members) often share anecdotes of skeptical first-time users turning into ardent fans after one soak – stories that echo those told in the 1950s, proving that while times change, happy feet are timeless.

As of 2023, Brown’s Foot Bath quietly celebrated its 80th anniversary – a milestone few consumer products ever reach. The Chiappetta brothers marked the occasion by reflecting on the journey: from Denis Crowley’s initial brainstorm in a North Hollywood shoe store during WWII, to Richard Wood’s faithful caretaking around the turn of the millennium, to the brand’s resurgence under their own stewardship today. It’s a testament to the power of a quality product and the dedication of those who believe in it. And the story is far from over. Looking ahead, the Chiappettas have their eyes on 2043, when Brown’s Foot Bath will turn 100 years old. If the past is any guide, there’s every reason to believe that by then countless more people will have discovered this timeless remedy for themselves. In an age of rapid change, Brown’s Foot Bath endures – a comforting reminder that sometimes the old ways are still the best ways, and that a good soak can solve a lot more than we think.