Church & Dwight (NYSE:CHD) is another of those smallish companies where you walk away thinking, "I didn't know they made that!" Trojan condoms? That's Church & Dwight. Ditto Mentadent, Nair, and the Arm & Hammer product line. Sounds like a potentially great, repeatable, and delightfully boring business, right?

The business may be boring and repeatable, but I'm not so sure about the "great" part for now. Organic revenue growth was just less than 4% this quarter, with good results in units such as laundry soap and family planning being offset by ongoing challenges in deodorants/antiperspirants and oral care. And while gross margins did manage an ever-so-slight improvement, the company is still suffering from high materials costs that it hasn't yet been able to fully pass on to consumers.

It's odd how different the numbers look at Chattem (NASDAQ:CHTT), which recorded 23% revenue growth this past quarter and gross margins about 80% higher than Church & Dwight's. Now, I realize Chattem's IcyHot and, say, dandruff shampoo are different, but wouldn't you think these two companies would be more similar? Even kinda ... sorta?

Anyway, these two companies do share some similarities. They sell their products in the same places, like Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Walgreen (NYSE:WAG), and they often face similar companies, like Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), as competitors.

Both also have meaningful market share in their respective niches. Trojan, for instance, has more than a 72% share in the condom market. Both also have a reason to be interested in Pfizer's (NYSE:PFE) sale of its consumer-products line -- Chattem might want part of that, and I'm sure Church & Dwight will be interested in the identity of whoever buys Pfizer's EPT pregnancy-test line.

Church & Dwight is also in the midst of a difficult transition from being an acquirer of disparate products to an operator of several business lines. And while it's not all been smooth -- buying Unilever's (NYSE:UL) oral care business hasn't worked out yet -- I think the company will get it right in time.

Unfortunately, so, too, does the market. These shares aren't priced for value investors, even if you give them some pretty healthy benefits of the doubt. This is one I'll definitely keep an eye on, but for now, at least, I'm a more avid consumer of the Arm & Hammer laundry detergent than the Church & Dwight stock.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).