Top 10 Products Invented for a Totally Different Reason

Top 10 Products That Were Initially Invented for a Different Purpose

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Products That Were Initially Invented for a Different Purpose.

For this list, we’ll be looking at successful inventions that currently serve a different function than they were initially conceived for.

Let us know in the comments below if you’ve ever used any of these products for their original purpose.

#10: Chewing Gum

Original Purpose: Rubber Substitute
While it has existed in several forms throughout history, what we now know as chewing gum originated from a substance called Chicle, which the ancient Mayans and Aztecs chewed. A natural tree gum, chicle was brought from Mexico to the U.S. in the 1860s by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and found its way into the hands of his secretary, Thomas Adams. Adams first marketed chicle as a rubber substitute for tire production, but when that failed to catch on, he tweaked its composition and packaging, selling it as chewing gum. This revised product sold like wildfire and the rest, they say, is some very rubbery history.

#9: Lysol

Original Purpose: Vaginal Douche
Though it is now widely known as a household cleaning agent, Lysol was originally marketed to women as a “feminine hygiene” product. Various ads from the 1920s and 30s were recently discovered showing the disinfectant being hailed not only as a hygiene product, but as a method of contraception. Yep, you heard that right! At the time, oral contraceptives hadn’t been invented yet, and condoms were too expensive for the average person, so Lysol was adopted as the relatively cheaper and easily accessible option. This didn’t pan out well, however, as the product ended up causing a lot of internal damage. The ads were eventually pulled and the brand put out a statement against using Lysol in or on the human body.

#8: Braille

Original Purpose: Military Language
During the Napoleonic Wars, there was a need for a means of communication between soldiers that would allow them to evade detection by their opponents. In response to this need, Charles Barbier, a Captain in the French Army developed night writing, a system that involved dots read with the fingers, without the use of a light source. Although it was turned down by the military for being too difficult to read, Barbier introduced it at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth, where Louis Braille happened to be a student. Braille identified the flaws with Barbier’s system and modified it into what it is today - an essential reading and writing tool for people who are visually impaired.

#7: Play-Doh

Original Purpose: Wallpaper Cleaner
For decades now, this salty and colorful clay has been the go-to toy for toddlers, but we bet you didn’t know that it was originally invented as a wallpaper cleaner. The modeling compound, produced by a Cincinnati-based soap manufacturer called Kutol Products, was advertised as a solution to soot-stained wallpapers caused by household coal furnaces. But with the end of the Second World War, most families transitioned to natural gas heating and the demand for wallpaper cleaners declined. The head of the company, Joseph McVicker, decided to rework the cleaner and market it as a play object. This saved the company’s declining sales, as Play-Doh became wildly popular among toddlers, selling a staggering two billion cans since its introduction.

#6: Corkscrew

Original Purpose: Bullet Extractor
The corkscrew is now a ubiquitous fixture in kitchens all around the world, but it first came to prominence for an entirely different purpose. In the 17th century, an early form of the device, known as the Gun Worm, was used on the battlefield to remove unspent bullets stuck in the barrel of a musket. In some cases, they were also used to extract bullets from wounds, especially those lodged deep in the bone or muscle. It wasn’t until the 18th century that several patents were filed for corkscrews modeled to open cork-sealed bottles. The first was granted in 1795, to a Reverend Samuel Henshall, whose design served as the blueprint for the modern-day corkscrew.

#5: Rubik’s Cube

Original Purpose: Learning Tool
The inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Ernő Rubik, was a young sculptor and professor of architecture when he created the puzzling cube in 1974. At the time, Rubik was fascinated with the idea of space and three-dimensional objects and needed a visual aid to better understand those concepts and teach them to his students. After making the first wooden prototype, Rubik’s students quickly became fascinated with it, which made him realize the potential of his toy puzzle. Rubik’s Cube was released to toy stores around the world in 1980 and became a worldwide phenomenon soon after. Today, the puzzle has seen over 450 million sales, making it the best-selling puzzle game of all time.

#4: Implantable Pacemaker

Original Purpose: Sound Recorder
The invention of the implantable pacemaker marked an important milestone in modern medicine that has allowed millions of people to live long, healthy lives. But it may shock you to know that this wonderful innovation was actually discovered by mistake. In 1956, Wilson Greatbatch, one of the first engineers to work on the implantable pacemaker, set out to create a device that would record the sounds of the heart. However, after placing the wrong resistor in the circuit, he realized that his device had generated an electrical pulse that could regulate the heart’s rhythm. This led to the invention of the earliest form of the implantable pacemaker, which was first used in humans in April 1960.

#3: Bubble Wrap

Original Purpose: Plastic Wallpaper
If at first you don’t succeed, you try and try… and try again, until you make it. At least, that was the lead-up to the invention of everyone’s favorite packaging material and stress reliever. The inventors of bubble wrap, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, first created it as a plastic wallpaper filled with air bubbles. When their bubble wallpaper failed to catch on, the two reworked it and tried marketing it as a greenhouse insulator, but sadly that also was a failure. Two years after its invention, Fielding and Chavannes struck gold when they pitched the bubble wrap to IBM as a protective material for its new, fragile computer.

#2: Coca-Cola

Original Purpose: Patent Medicine
After the American Civil War, many former soldiers started using morphine to relieve the pain from their war-inflicted injuries and ended up developing an addiction to it. One such person was John Pemberton, a Confederate colonel who would go on to invent one of the world’s most popular soft drinks. Back in 1885, Pemberton, who was also a pharmacist, set out to find a cure for his addiction and came up with Coca-Cola, a drink he marketed as a tonic for morphine addiction, nerve disorders, and impotence. The secret recipe was bought from Pemberton by another pharmacist, and the tonic was rebranded from a patent medicine to the refreshing soft drink that we know and love today.

#1: Listerine

Original Purpose: Surgical Antiseptic & General Germicide
The name of this popular mouthwash brand came from Joseph Lister, an English surgeon who pioneered the use of antiseptics during surgery. Inspired by Lister’s work, Joseph Lawrence, a Missouri-based doctor, developed a powerful formulation of his own antiseptic, which he called Listerine. Lawrence first marketed Listerine as a surgical antiseptic, as well as an all-purpose germicide to treat wounds, clean floors, and even cure gonorrhea. The product never really took off for any of these, until the 1920s when its manufacturers initiated an aggressive ad campaign that highlighted bad breath as a major societal problem. They then promoted Listerine as the only solution to this problem, effectively carving out their own market. Talk about a breath of fresh air.