CIBA VISION company provides research and development and manufactures eyeglasses and contacts. CIBA VISION also offers lens care and ophthalmic surgical products and related services to customers in more than 70 countries. Its contact lens brands include AIR OPTIX, NIGHT & DAY, and DAILIES. The company's FreshLook line is a leader in the color contact lens market. CIBA VISION sold a couple of its soft contact lens lines -- Aquaflex and Softcon -- to a unit of Unilens Vision, which, as part of the agreement, pays CIBA VISION a royalty on certain sales through 2010. CIBA VISION was established in 1980 by Ciba-Geigy, which merged with Sandoz in 1996 to form Novartis.

Instead hopes that women adopt its alternative to pads and tampons. Its primary product, the Instead Softcup, is a feminine hygiene product that sits inside a woman's body and collects, rather than absorbs, menstrual flow. Developed by a group of reproductive health scientists, the Softcup is sold in major US drugstores (including chain stores Wal-Mart and Target) and through its Web site. It's also distributed in Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, and about a half-dozen other countries worldwide. Instead is also researching the possibility of using a version of its Softcup as a contraceptive device.

Capezio/Ballet Makers is hoping that it reaps the plentiful rewards of a Dance Dance Revolution. The company, which has been operating for more than a century, makes dance apparel and footwear, including ballet "pointe" shoes, ice skating costumes, and ballroom dancing apparel. Its products are sold through licensed Capezio dealer stores, online, and by catalog. Through its Ballet Makers-Europe unit, a joint venture with partner Norwich Dancewear formed in 1999, Capezio/Ballet Makers makes and markets its products in Europe. The company's run by the family of founder Salvatore Capezio, a cobbler who made a name for himself with performers at the neighborhood's Metropolitan Opera House.

PolyVision knows that a presentation isn't complete without visual displays. It makes static and electronic visual-communication products for schools, offices, and public places. PolyVision makes such items as whiteboards and other writing surfaces, including electronic whiteboards that capture information and sends it directly to a computer. It also makes tunnel walls for subways and bus stations. PolyVision's e3 environmental ceramicsteel brand is an eco-friendly rolled steel surface that's used in hospitals, factories, and learning institutions. Office-furniture maker Steelcase bought PolyVision in 2002.

Bienestar International wants consumers to think about the well-being of the people who work for its manufacturers. Bienestar and its No Sweat Apparel brand broke into the market by emphasizing fair labor practices -- outsourcing its manufacturing to union shops that pay living wages and offer benefits to workers. The company offers plain and screen-printed T-shirts, hoodies, accessories, and shoes for men, women, and children. Products are retailed through Bienestar's e-commerce site and more than 150 specialty stores in the US, Canada, and Europe. It also wholesales its merchandise to schools, churches, and other groups. CEO Adam Neiman and his wife, VP Natalia Muina, each own about 40% of the firm.

Sappi Limited operates in the pulp and paper industry worldwide. It produces and sells coated woodfree paper used for brochures, catalogues, corporate communications materials, direct mail promotions, educational textbooks, luxury advertising, magazine covers, and upscale magazines; and uncoated woodfree paper for business forms, business stationery, general printing paper, tissue, and photocopy paper; and specialty woodfree paper used in bags, labels, packaging, and release paper for casting textured finishes, as well as packaging paper products used for primary and secondary packaging of fast moving consumer goods, agricultural, and industrial products. The company also provides mechanical papers, such as newsprint, which is manufactured from groundwood and bleached chemical pulp, used for advertising inserts and newspapers; uncoated mechanical paper, an uncoated groundwood fiber based paper, primarily used for magazines, catalogues, and advertising material; and coated mechanical/magazine paper, a coated groundwood fiber based paper, primarily used for magazines, catalogues, and advertising material. In addition, it produces chemical cellulose, as well as a range of paper pulp grades, including mechanical pulp used in newsprint, unbleached kraft pulp, bleached kraft pulp, and bleached sulphite pulp. Further, Sappi Limited offers sawn timber for the building industry and components for the furniture and packaging industry. Its customers include merchants, converters, printers, publishers, and other direct customers.

Founded in 1980, Set-N-Me-Free Aloe Vera Co. is a top maker of aloe vera skin care products in the Pacific Northwest. It peddles its products through spas and salons nationwide, as well as through its own Web site. Aloe can't get you out of jail, but according to this company, it can set you free. Set-N-Me-Free Aloe Vera Co. is a personal care and pet care products manufacturer. The company specializes in making and selling items that contain 100% US-grown aloe vera. Set-N-Me-Free Aloe Vera Co. offers body and skin care (body wash, bath milk), hair care, sun care, body wraps, and herbal supplements. Its pet care items include dog shampoos and lotions.

The NeoStrata Company, founded in 1988 by two doctors who specialize in skin research, is a skin care firm dedicated to researching, developing, and marketing Alpha Hydroxyacid (AHA) skin products, as well as natural compounds using polyhydroxy acids (PHAs) and lactobionic acids. Some items are sold exclusively to dermatologists and plastic surgeons, while others sell in spas, salons, beauty stores, and department stores. Its brands include NeoStrata (anti-aging), Exuviance, CoverBlend (cosmetics), and NeoCeuticals (for specific skin conditions) that are sold in the US and more than 60 foreign countries.

Fortunately for its consumers, "MOP" is merely an acronym for the corporation and not an adjective describing its end users' hairstyles. Modern Organic Products (familiarly known as "MOP") makes organic hair care and skin care products that are sold by professional salons and specialty retailers nationwide. Brands include MOP, c-system, and glisten. It also makes American Crew- and d:fi-branded products and sells them through their own Web sites, as well as through haircare professionals. The company supports development of its products without testing on animals.

Esprit Holdings got its start in San Francisco in the 1970s. Esprit Holdings aims to put shoppers in the buying spirit. The firm sells a wide range of fashion items through about a dozen product lines -- including women's, men's, and children's apparel, footwear, accessories, assorted housewares, and jewelry under the Esprit label. Women's apparel and accessories account for nearly two-thirds of sales. The company also sells cosmetics and skin care products under the Red Earth brand name. Esprit Holdings controls retail space of more than 817,000 square meters and has about 15,000 wholesale outlets in 40-plus countries, including about 1,640 owned and franchised stores. It also licenses the Esprit name.

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