Local ISO Trumpeter creates Lip Balm

Writer / Susan Guyett

Dan Gosling, the inventor of ChopSaver lip balm sold all over the country, has a success story that proves you can bounce back from major career setbacks.

Gosling, a professional trumpet player originally from Elkhart, lost his job with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in 2004. Losing the chair to another musician was a blow to his ego, his income and his family.

Looking to make a new start, he learned that a former student used Arnica, an herb in the sunflower family, to treat a lip injury. Arnica has been used topically since the 1500s to reduce pain and bruising. Gosling got the idea of developing a lip soother containing Arnica just for musicians.

He knew it was a product that brass instrument players would appreciate. “Our lips swell up after long practice sessions and concerts,” he said. “If it swells up too much, it can get in the way of easy tone productions.”

So what does a professional musician know about developing a specialty lip balm? Not much.

A few false starts in his Broad Ripple kitchen produced some pretty awful concoctions, he concedes. But like a composer creating a symphony, Gosling kept trying new combinations while continuing to work as a musician and raising money from family and friends. He was determined that his product had to be special: natural, effective and long lasting, a cut above the lip products already in the market.

He avoided petroleum and animal fat bases in favor of all-natural ingredients such as shea butter, mango butter, avocado oil, aloe, citrus oils and grape seed oils. The result of his work is Gosling’s Original ChopSaver.

Along with perfecting the formula, Gosling cast about for target markets in additional to professional musicians. He knew a long-lasting, naturally scented balm would save high school and college marching band players a lot of discomfort. Many have lip problems aggravated by their vigorous practice schedules that include sessions in the scorching summer heat and performances at frigid football stadiums in the winter.

Sycamore School band director Candi Granlund understands how important healthy lips are to some musicians. “That is how their sound is produced, by lips vibrating,” she said. Getting the sound you need is easier if your lips are moist, she said.

Once Gosling had some success placing ChopSaver in music stores and getting testimonials from well-known brass players, he had another skill set to learn from scratch: business.

His goal was to have a product ready for a small market distribution by the end of 2004 for the Bands of America Marching Band Championships. He learned his first order had to be for 10,000 tubes.

Gosling said he eventually realized even if he had a great product, he needed to become a savvy businessman to move to the next level.

He invested in hiring the experts he needed to get ChopSaver to a national market. That process required a “big boy business plan” and two years of making the rounds to store buyers which he compares to speed dating.

“It was a 10-year journey,” Gosling said recently, but his patience, practice and persistence paid off with an order for 43,000 tubes of ChopSaver from the CVS drugstore chain. The lip balm is also available in local Kroger stores and music stores.

Gosling also trumpets that everyone can benefit from ChopSaver, “It helps everyone with lips, not just musicians.”

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