Gehwol

Gehwol (styled GEHWOL) is a German foot-care brand made by Eduard Gerlach GmbH, a family-owned company based in Lübbecke, in the East Westphalia region of Germany. The company traces its founding to 25 November 1868 [6], when a trained druggist named Eduard Gerlach registered his father's shop as a business and added a drugstore to it. Its first foot cream followed in 1882, and the GEHWOL name itself was introduced in 1910–1911. Today the brand covers creams and treatments for everyday foot care alongside a professional line made only for foot-care practices, and the company also builds treatment chairs and equipment for foot-care practices.

Gerlach describes its 1882 cream as the world's first industrially produced foot cream [3], a claim that no independent source confirms but that sits at the heart of how the company tells its own story. The brand is sold through what German calls the Fachhandel, the specialist trade: foot-care specialists and pharmacies. According to the company, its products are now available in more than 50 countries [8]. Eduard Gerlach GmbH remains in the hands of the founding family and is active, with a steady flow of product launches, trade-fair appearances and management news in 2026.

The Gerlach family's roots in Lübbecke predate the company by several generations. According to a company press release marking its 150th anniversary, the family's ancestral house on Lange Straße came into its possession before the firm was founded, when a master blacksmith named Gottschalk Gerlach lived there. His descendants held a mix of jobs, sometimes several at once: economist, town treasurer, postal clerk and colonial-goods merchant. From 1832 Ludwig Gerlach ran a colonial-goods shop, a kind of general store selling imported and fine foods such as fish, cheese, pasta, wines, liqueurs, chocolate, tea and jam.

Ludwig's son, Eduard Gerlach the Elder, had trained as a druggist. In 1868 he took over the shop, registered it formally as a business and added a drugstore. The company treats this step as its founding moment, even though, as it acknowledges, the shop was already trading before then.

The founding story the company tells is one of a man reading his times. In the late nineteenth century, many rural people were on the move, and industrialisation pushed city workers to travel in search of work. Others walked for pleasure; the company notes that the first German hiking association was formed in this period. Good, comfortable leather shoes were not yet something the average factory hand or farm labourer could afford, and feet took a heavy toll.

A common remedy was a potash foot bath, which was known to soften hard skin and help sores heal but was hard to use on long marches. Gerlach set out, in the company's words, to help people with foot problems and make foot care affordable for everyone. The result, in 1882, was E. Gerlach's Praeservativ-Cream. The company's history page describes the formula as a mix of unsaturated fatty acids, a medical-grade soap and mineral lubricants. A 2018 article in the regional daily Neue Westfälische on the company's 150th anniversary summed up the origin in its headline: it all began with sore soldiers' feet [10].

The Praeservativ-Cream sold well. According to the company, it drew attention abroad and was shown at international exhibitions, from its home region as far as Cairo and New York. In 1910 Eduard Gerlach the Younger took over the business.

That same period produced the name the brand still carries. The company's history page says the GEHWOL trademark was filed in 1910 and later entered in the register of the Imperial Patent Office [3]; the 2018 press release dates the registration to 1911, when the cream was renamed GEHWOL FUSSKREM [6]. The two accounts describe the two stages of one process, filing and registration, rather than a disagreement. The brand name thus came more than four decades after the company it belongs to, which is why Gerlach's "since 1868" refers to the firm rather than to the GEHWOL mark.

In the decades that followed, chemical and pharmaceutical products gradually pushed the old colonial-goods trade aside. The range grew to include a tonic called Gerlach's Lebertran-Emulsion, a cod-liver-oil preparation marketed as a strengthening food for young and old, as well as the liquid foot treatment GEHWOL flüssig and a body-care brand, GERLASAN.

The next turning point came in post-war Germany, where professional foot care began to establish itself as a service in its own right, and the company saw a new generation paying closer attention to health and grooming. In 1961 it launched GEHWOL FUSSKRAFT, a product series made exclusively for foot-care practices and sold only there, tying it to the advice of the professional. The company calls it its first stand-alone brand developed for professional foot care.

From 1965 the company added a second business, GERLACH TECHNIK, to serve the growing market for foot-care services. Its early work included what the company calls the first foot-care device combining a micromotor handpiece with suction and a cabinet. With that, Gerlach could supply a practice with both the products and the equipment, which the company sums up in its long-standing motto, "Alles für das Wohl der Füße" ("everything for the well-being of the feet").

In 2018 Eduard Gerlach GmbH marked its 150th anniversary.

Eduard Gerlach GmbH is an independent family company, and no acquisition of the business has been reported. The founding family has run it through successive generations. In 1978 Jobst-Peter Gerlach-v. Waldthausen and his cousin Klaus Gerlach-Meinders took over from Gerhard Gerlach-Hollmann, who had led the company for 20 years. Jobst-Peter Gerlach-v. Waldthausen was sole managing director from 2016 to 2017, and at the start of 2018 his son, Timor Gerlach-v. Waldthausen, joined as managing partner alongside his father.

The company's own pages count the generations in different ways. The 2018 anniversary release describes the 1978 handover as the fourth generation taking charge [6], while the company's philosophy page says the business has been committed to foot health "for seven generations" [4]. Neither page explains its basis. One likely reading is that the higher figure includes family members who ran the shop before 1868, such as Ludwig Gerlach and his forebears, while the lower one counts only generations since the company's founding.

In April 2026 the company announced that Jarek Raby had been appointed a managing director. The company's legal notice lists three managing directors: Timor Gerlach-v. Waldthausen, Jobst-Peter Gerlach-v. Waldthausen and Jarek Raby [7].

Alongside GEHWOL, the company owns the body-care brands GERLASAN and Gerlavit and the equipment division GERLACH TECHNIK.

Gerlach frames its whole business around one question, which its philosophy page puts roughly as: what can be done to give feet a little more well-being? The brand, the company says, grew out of that question, and its answers take the form of foot-care preparations, formulas it describes as close to nature, and new technology. Its mission statement is narrower and more commercial: to develop the market for professional foot care further.

The choice of sales channel is central to how the company presents itself. Gerlach says it deliberately sells through the specialist trade, meaning foot-care specialists and pharmacies, rather than through general retail, and it lists loyalty to that trade among its core values. The others it names are innovation, quality, customer focus, care for its employees, tradition and family, and closeness to nature. On the last point, the company says its product development puts weight on natural ingredients and on essential oils, under the guiding idea of "Naturkraft für das Wohl der Füße" ("the power of nature for the well-being of the feet").

The brand's logo carries a reminder of its hometown. According to the company, it was granted permission by the town of Lübbecke to use the two keys from the town's coat of arms in its trademark, and the key symbol has been part of the company's trademark since its founding.

Gerlach also makes strong claims about its market standing. The company says GEHWOL leads the specialist trade and is the best-known complete foot-care range in Germany, and its history page cites market research to describe the brand as the best-known foot-care brand in the country [3]. These are the company's own statements, and no independent market data backing them has been published alongside them.

The brand's range divides into two broad tiers. Consumer products, sold in pharmacies and by foot-care specialists, address everyday care and common problems such as dry skin and hard skin. The FUSSKRAFT line, launched in 1961, is reserved for foot-care practices and is sold only there.

Within FUSSKRAFT, the company has added a wellness series called GEHWOL FUSSKRAFT Soft Feet, which it says uses ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, milk and honey. It has also introduced Deozinc®, an ingredient the company presents as its own innovation and says gives long-lasting protection against foot odour.

In 2017 Gerlach launched GEHWOL med Sensitive, a line of special care for sensitive skin. The company says it offers a care option for people with atopic eczema, based on nano-free MicroSilver BG, an ingredient it describes as scientifically tested, and that it relieves itching and protects against skin infections [6]. These are the company's own descriptions; MicroSilver BG is an ingredient trade name, and the company does not say it owns it.

The equipment side has continued to grow. In March 2026 the company presented new launches at the BEAUTY Düsseldorf trade fair, including the VEGA and VIREO patient and work chairs for foot-care practices, a cold-plasma treatment device, and a limited edition of GEHWOL FUSSKRAFT Soft Feet Butter together with a GERLASAN hand cream, both made with echinacea.

The 2018 Neue Westfälische article described the Lübbecke family company as having a good reputation worldwide for its GEHWOL foot-care products [10]. No industry awards for the brand have been documented.

GEHWOL is an active brand. Eduard Gerlach GmbH continues to operate from Lübbecke under family ownership, with Carl-Vogeler-Straße 10 as its registered address. The company says its products and equipment are available in more than 50 countries [8]; its 2018 anniversary release gave the figure as 50. It works through national distribution partners, which include Benestar Corporation in the United States, Cuxson Gerrard & Co. in the United Kingdom, VAN SAN-SHO in Japan and Continental Cosmetics in Canada.

The company's press room shows regular activity through 2026. Besides the March trade-fair launches and the April appointment of Jarek Raby, a July 2026 release announced a Halal certification for GEHWOL products, presented as a response to demand in global markets; the release does not specify which products or which certifying body. The most recent release, dated 27 September 2026, covered the third GEHWOL HAUTNAH in-house trade fair, held the previous day [9].