O'Keeffe's

O'Keeffe's, marketed as O'Keeffe's Hardworking Skincare, is an American maker of hand, foot, lip and body creams built around a single glycerin-based formula for severely dry, cracked skin. It was founded in 1994 by pharmacist Tara O'Keeffe in Bend, Oregon [9], who created the original hand cream in her kitchen for her father, a rancher whose chapped hands existing products could not relieve. Since 2010 the brand has been owned by The Gorilla Glue Company of Cincinnati, Ohio [9], and now operates as a sub-brand of that company rather than an independent business.

The line is sold through a mix of pharmacies, mass-market retailers and hardware stores in the United States and is distributed across the Nordic region through Swedish pharmacy chains. Its best-known products, Working Hands and Healthy Feet, are positioned as everyday remedies for people with persistent dry-skin and eczema conditions.

The company traces its origin to the Klamath Basin on the California–Oregon border, where Tara O'Keeffe, a pharmacist, set out to help her father with painfully dry, cracked hands. According to the company, her father Bill O'Keeffe was a rancher and a diabetic whose skin did not respond to anything on the market [2]. A 2002 profile in the Wallowa County Chieftain, written before the brand's national rise, describes him simply as a Klamath Falls–area sheep rancher and does not name him or mention diabetes; those details come from O'Keeffe's own account [10].

O'Keeffe, who also appears in early records under her married name Broadbent, tested hundreds of recipes before settling on what the Chieftain called "an unconventional glycerin-based formula that draws moisture into skin rather than simply moisturizing the surface." The earliest batches were made in a farmhouse kitchen with a food processor and a microwave under a home-occupation permit. The resulting product became Working Hands, the brand's flagship.

The business was first incorporated in Bend, Oregon, in 1994 and moved to Joseph, Oregon, in 1996, where it grew from a kitchen operation into a small manufacturer producing several thousand jars a day [10]. In 2002 it was named Oregon's women-owned family business of the year by Oregon State University's Austin Family Business Program [10]. By the late 2000s the company had relocated to Sisters, Oregon, and was selling nationally through pharmacy and farm-supply chains.

In 2010 O'Keeffe sold the company to The Gorilla Glue Company of Cincinnati, with the final payment recorded on 28 April 2010 [9]. At the time the business had roughly $2 million in annual revenue and about 20 employees; the brand name and the unpatented, trade-secret formula passed to the new owner [9]. The brand has since marketed a "25+ Year Heritage of Guaranteed Relief."

O'Keeffe's is owned by The Gorilla Glue Company, an adhesives manufacturer headquartered in the Cincinnati area. Sources differ on the acquisition date. Contemporaneous Oregon reporting in the Bend Bulletin places the sale in April 2010, with a specific closing date and a direct quote from Tara O'Keeffe [9]; Wikipedia's article on Gorilla Glue instead states that the company "bought O'Keeffe's Skincare" in 2018 [8]. The 2010 account is the more detailed and closer to the event, and the 2018 reference may correspond to a later corporate transaction rather than the original sale. After the acquisition, production moved from Oregon to Ohio while the O'Keeffe's name was kept.

The company presents itself under the tagline "Hardworking Skincare," with a stated mission "to provide relief so you can keep going." It frames its products as practical remedies for extreme dryness rather than cosmetic skincare, describing an approach that addresses the causes of dry skin rather than masking symptoms. O'Keeffe's also emphasises a family-owned culture and an employee-first philosophy, and notes that it has been recognised as a top place to work in Cincinnati for several consecutive years [2]. Every product carries a money-back guarantee promising a full refund of the purchase price to dissatisfied customers [7].

The range is organised into four areas: hands, feet, lips and body. Working Hands and Healthy Feet anchor the line, each offered in jars, tubes and pump formats alongside variants such as night treatments and pain-relief versions. The lip range includes a Lip Repair line, of which only the SPF 35 balm carries sun protection, while the body range covers Skin Repair creams for severe dryness and eczema, both described as hypoallergenic and unscented.

Across the range, glycerin is the hero ingredient. The company describes it as drawing moisture from the air to boost and retain the skin's moisture, then forming a protective barrier to lock it in and prevent further loss. The brand states that its Skin Repair body cream is "clinically proven to promote skin healing," though the underlying formula has never been patented and remains a trade secret [9]. O'Keeffe's markets Working Hands as the United States' number-one hand cream and Healthy Feet as the country's number-one foot cream, citing Nielsen sales data for the 52-week period ending 5 October 2024.

Beyond the 2002 Oregon women-owned family business award, O'Keeffe's has had little coverage in mainstream beauty press, consistent with its positioning as a pharmacy and hardware-store cream rather than a prestige line. A 2010 Bend Bulletin report and trade coverage in HBS Dealer documented the Gorilla Glue acquisition, and UK beauty blog Really Ree reviewed Working Hands favourably, characterising its core audience as manual workers, tradespeople and people with eczema and chronic dry skin [12].

O'Keeffe's remains an active brand operating under Gorilla Glue ownership; its status is best described as acquired rather than independent. Commercial activity is current: its product pages cite Nielsen sales data through October 2024, and the line is stocked across US retailers and multiple Nordic pharmacies, including Sweden's state-owned Apoteket chain [11].