# LEBEWOHL ## Facts | | | |---|---| | Founded | 1905 | | Origin | Germany | | Headquarters | Freiburg (im Breisgau), Germany | | Status | Active | | Manufacturing | Freiburg, Germany (Bötzinger Str. 62 — licensed site; authorisation scope is batch certification of plasters and liquids for external use), Umkirch, Germany (Stöckmatten 1-11 — storage of medicinal products) | | Website | https://lebewohl.de/ | LEBEWOHL is a German foot-care brand made by Lebewohl-Fabrik GmbH & Co. KG of Freiburg im Breisgau. Its story begins in Dresden, where the chemist Carl F. W. Becker worked on corn plasters, small adhesive pads that soften the hardened skin of a corn. The company dates its start to 1905 [2], and its corn plaster with a green ointment core is still the centre of the range more than a century later. Part of its history is documented outside the company: museum and library collections hold LEBEWOHL tins and advertisements from the early twentieth century, while the present-day company holds a German manufacturing authorisation for medicinal products. Today it sells a compact range of plasters, tinctures, protective rings, creams and powders aimed at everyday foot problems. The brand is active. ## Origin & founders According to the company's own history, the brand grew out of Carl F. W. Becker's work in Dresden. LEBEWOHL describes Becker as a trained chemist and as one of the leading pioneers of corn plasters built around a special ointment core that carries the active ingredient. The idea was simple: place the treatment exactly on the corn and hold it there, rather than spread it across the foot. "Shortly afterwards," the company writes, Becker founded the Lebewohl factory with 15 employees. The brand's account does not give a separate year for the factory, so 1905 stands as the year the company itself uses for its beginning. Museum records from the 1920s list the maker of LEBEWOHL corn plasters as "Pharmaceutische Fabrik Carl F. W. Becker", Dresden [11], which confirms both the founder's role and the brand's Dresden roots from a source outside the company. Becker was also active beyond his own factory. On 25 September 1915, at the Restaurant Angermann in Dresden, he founded VELIDRO, a protective association for suppliers to the medicines trade. The company presents this as part of its heritage, alongside the factory itself. ## History & milestones ### The founding date The company titles its history page "Tradition & foot care since 1905", and its homepage speaks of more than 120 years of experience in foot care [1]. The same history page, however, carries the heading "Our story began 119 years ago" on a page first published in April 2025, which would point to 1906 rather than 1905 [2]. The English and Polish versions of the site repeat the "119 years" wording [3]. The difference is one of precision rather than a competing founding story: the brand consistently names 1905 as its start year, and this article follows that date. ### Early advertising Demand for corn plasters was high in the brand's early decades, and the company says this pushed Becker to invest heavily in advertising. In LEBEWOHL's telling, he soon noticed that the public responded well to humour. Well-known cartoonists, among them Paul Simmel from Berlin, drew comic scenes for newspaper advertisements, colouring books, timetables and advertising films. Alongside the cartoons, the company used more realistic images on posters and exhibition stands. Several of these advertising pieces survive in public collections, which gives the brand's own account an unusual degree of outside support. A small tin from around 1920 is held by the Industriemuseum Chemnitz [11]. The museum describes it as a dark brown, rectangular sheet-metal box with rounded corners, about 70 by 35 by 15 millimetres, decorated on the lid with the brand name in gold lettering and floral details. It once held "Lebewohl Hühneraugen-Pflaster", the brand's corn plasters, although the contents have not survived. A 1927 advertisement from an illustrated newspaper in Munich shows how far the fairy-tale approach went [12]. It borrows the Snow White story: a housemaid with a feather duster sits on a grand bed and looks at herself in a large mirror, above a four-line verse that plays on the magic-mirror scene from the Grimm tale. The Deutsches Märchen- und Wesersagenmuseum, which holds the piece, notes that its collection includes two more advertisements from the same maker based on Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. The Wellcome Collection holds a colour lithograph advertising LEBEWOHL corn plasters [13]. Printed by Offset Tiefdruck G.m.b.H. in Coswig, near Dresden, and dated only to the twentieth century, it contrasts a smiling woman with a man in pain, with an open tin of plasters shown below. Its German caption reads "Sie gebraucht es. Er hat's nötig." ("She uses it. He needs it.") ### From Dresden to Freiburg The company that makes LEBEWOHL products today is based in Freiburg im Breisgau, in south-western Germany, far from the brand's Dresden origins. When and why the business moved has not been publicly documented. The company's own history moves directly from its early decades in Dresden to its present-day range. ### Recent regulatory milestones The modern company operates as a maker of medicinal products. On 30 July 2021 the Regierungspräsidium Tübingen, the regional authority responsible for medicines supervision in Baden-Württemberg, issued Lebewohl-Fabrik GmbH & Co. KG a manufacturing authorisation under the German Medicines Act. The authority inspected the Freiburg site on 14 March 2024 and issued a certificate of good manufacturing practice (GMP), the European standard for how medicines are produced and checked, on 15 July 2024 [10]. ## Ownership The brand belongs to Lebewohl-Fabrik GmbH & Co. KG, a German limited partnership whose general partner is a limited company. The company is registered at the commercial register in Freiburg and has its address at Bötzinger Straße 62 in Freiburg [5]. No parent company, sale or acquisition of the brand is publicly documented, and LEBEWOHL has no known sister brands. ## Philosophy & positioning LEBEWOHL presents itself as a foot-care specialist rather than a general beauty brand. Its tagline, "Weil Ihre Füße Sie durchs Leben tragen", translates as "Because your feet carry you through life". The company says it combines traditional knowledge with modern technology, and credits its long history and its focus on quality with making it a trusted name. The range is organised around specific problems rather than around skin types or rituals. The company names corns, pressure points, blisters, dry heels, cracked skin, ingrown nails and foot odour as the issues its products address. Its stated aim is to help people keep their feet "healthy and fit". On its own site, LEBEWOHL sums up its offer as "foot care from Lebewohl: quality that sells". Part of the range is regulated as medicine. The corn plasters and the corn tincture are sold as human medicinal products in Germany, and the company runs a 24-hour telephone line for problems related to its medicines. This places the brand closer to the pharmacy shelf than to the cosmetics counter, even though its creams and powders are everyday care products. ## Products & innovation ### Corn treatments The corn plaster remains the brand's signature product. The company describes it as a plaster with a green ointment core that works "exactly where it is needed: directly on the corn". It comes in a standard version and an "extra stark" (extra strong) version. The Polish version of the site names the active ingredient as salicylic acid, an ingredient that loosens hardened skin. The official wording for the plaster describes its use as the loosening of localised hardened skin, a process known as keratolysis, as it can occur with corns and calluses. This is the formal indication for a medicinal product, not the result of a published clinical study. The second corn treatment is a liquid tincture. LEBEWOHL presents it as an alternative to the plaster for use on the go, applied precisely to the corn, and describes the formula as one valued "for generations". ### Pressure protection Round and oval pressure-protection rings are small cushions that sit around a sore spot to take pressure off it. The company recommends them for corns, calluses and rubbing inside shoes. ### Daily foot care The rest of the twelve-item range covers routine care: - a callus-reducing ointment (Hornhaut Reduziersalbe) for thickened skin; - an intensive regenerating cream that the brand says smooths and moisturises; - an intensive ointment for dry, cracked heels (Schrunden Intensiv Salbe); - a nail-fold gel (Nagelfalzgel) meant to calm irritated skin around ingrown toenails; - a foot and shoe powder that the company states is made without talc; - a protective and refreshing spray for feet and shoes that is said to neutralise odour; - a callus sponge for smoothing rough skin. The range has stayed narrow. Every product in the current range is meant for the feet. ### Manufacturing The 2021 authorisation and the 2024 GMP certificate both relate to the Freiburg site. The authorisation covers batch release, the final quality check before a batch of medicine can be sold, for liquids for external use and for plasters. It also covers the storage of medicines at a second site, in Umkirch near Freiburg. The documents do not state where the products themselves are made. ## Recognition The brand's main documented honour comes from its early years. According to the company, LEBEWOHL won first prize in 1908 at the first major trade exhibition of the German pharmacists' association, the Deutscher Apothekerverband [2]. The English version of the company's history gives the organiser as the "German Druggists' Association" instead [3], while the Polish version, like the German original, refers to an association of pharmacists [4]. The award is known only from the brand's own account. No modern awards or third-party certifications are documented. Outside attention to the brand is mainly historical: its early tins and advertisements are held by the Industriemuseum Chemnitz, the Deutsches Märchen- und Wesersagenmuseum and the Wellcome Collection. ## Current status LEBEWOHL is active. The company's German website was updated in September 2026 and lists a range of twelve foot-care products. It runs parallel websites in German, English and Polish, and names Tenex Sp. z o.o. as its exclusive distributor in Poland [4]. Its manufacturing authorisation dates from 2021, and its most recent GMP inspection took place in March 2024. ## Timeline {#belagg-timeline} | Year | Event | Source | |---|---|---| | 1905 | Dresden: chemist Carl F. W. Becker develops corn plasters with an ointment active-ingredient core; shortly afterwards founds the Lebewohl factory with 15 employees (brand's own account; exact factory-founding year not stated beyond 'Kurz darauf') | https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ | | 1908 | Lebewohl wins first prize at the first major trade exhibition of the Deutscher Apothekerverband (brand-stated: '1908 gewinnt Lebewohl den ersten Preis auf der ersten großen Handelsausstellung des Deutschen Apothekerverbandes.') | https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ | | 1915 | 25 September 1915: Carl F. W. Becker founds VELIDRO, the Schutzverband für Lieferanten im Arzneimittelhandel, at Restaurant Angermann in Dresden | https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ | | 1920 | c. 1920: 'Lebewohl Hühneraugen-Pflaster' tin made by Pharmaceutische Fabrik Carl F. W. Becker, Dresden — held by Industriemuseum Chemnitz | https://sachsen.museum-digital.de/object/46703 | | 1927 | Snow White-themed 'Lebewohl' corn-plaster advertisement in a Munich illustrated newspaper, part of a Grimm fairy-tale ad series (Dornröschen, Aschenbrödel) — held by Deutsches Märchen- und Wesersagenmuseum | https://owl.museum-digital.de/object/585 | | 2021 | 30 July 2021: Regierungspräsidium Tübingen issues manufacturing authorisation DE_BW_01_MIA_2021_0080 to Lebewohl-Fabrik GmbH & Co. KG, Freiburg (scope: batch certification of plasters and liquids for external use; storage in Umkirch) | https://dm74961.domenomania.eu/lebewohl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GMP-und-Herstellerlaubnis2-1.pdf | | 2024 | GMP inspection of the Freiburg site on 14 March 2024; GMP certificate DE_BW_01_GMP_2024_0112 issued 15 July 2024 | https://dm74961.domenomania.eu/lebewohl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GMP-und-Herstellerlaubnis2-1.pdf | | — | Early advertising: humorous campaigns with caricatures by cartoonists such as Paul Simmel (Berlin) for ads, colouring books, timetables and advertising films (brand-stated, undated) | https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ | ## Awards {#belagg-awards} | Year | Awards | Category | Source | |---|---|---|---| | 1908 | First prize, first major trade exhibition of the Deutscher Apothekerverband | trade exhibition (brand-stated; not independently verified) | https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ | ## Signature products {#belagg-products} - **Hühneraugen Lebewohl Pflaster (corn plaster; also 'extra stark')** — Unser Hühneraugenpflaster mit dem grünen Salbenkern wirkt genau dort, wo es gebraucht wird: direkt am Hühnerauge. — https://lebewohl.de/category/produkte/ - **Hühneraugentinktur Flüssig** — Die Lebewohl Hühneraugentinktur hilft zuverlässig bei Hühneraugen – mit punktgenauer Anwendung und bewährter Rezeptur. Seit Generationen geschätzt. — https://lebewohl.de/category/produkte/ - **Druckschutzringe – rund und oval** — Empfindliche Stellen am Fuß schützen Sie durch Lebewohl Druckschutzringe. Sie mildern den schmerzhaften Druck am Fuß. — https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ - **Schrunden Intensiv Salbe** — Pflegt und regeneriert trockene, rissige Haut spürbar intensiv. — https://lebewohl.de/category/produkte/ - **Fuß- und Schuhpuder** — Frische & Schutz – ohne Talk — https://lebewohl.de/category/produkte/ ## Key ingredients {#belagg-ingredients} salicylic acid Source: https://lebewohl.pl/o-nas/ ## Sources 1. (T1) https://lebewohl.de/ 2. (T1) https://lebewohl.de/uber-uns/ 3. (T2) https://lebewohl.com/about-us/ 4. (T2) https://lebewohl.pl/o-nas/ 5. (T2) https://lebewohl.de/impressum/ 10. (T2) https://dm74961.domenomania.eu/lebewohl/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GMP-und-Herstellerlaubnis2-1.pdf 11. (T3) https://sachsen.museum-digital.de/object/46703 12. (T3) https://owl.museum-digital.de/object/585 13. (T3) https://wellcomecollection.org/works/f6ykdedb --- Glowpedia · · Published 2026-10-06 Please cite with a link to the article URL.