Pepsodent

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Pepsodent

Pepsodent is a brand of toothpaste

Toothpaste

Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it can aid in the removal of dental plaque and food from the teeth, aid in the elimination and/or masking of halitosis and deliver active ingredients such as fluoride or xylitol to prevent tooth...
with a wintergreen

Wintergreen

Wintergreen is a group of plants. Wintergreen once commonly referred to plants that continue photosynthesis throughout the winter. The term evergreen is now more commonly used for this characteristic....
flavor. It was formerly owned by Unilever

Unilever

Unilever is a multi-national corporation, formed of United Kingdom-Netherlands parentage that owns many of the world's consumer product brand names in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
(but, since 2003, by Church and Dwight

Church and Dwight

Church & Dwight Co., Inc. is a major United States manufacturer of household products that is based in Princeton, New Jersey. While it manufactures many items, it is by far best known for its Arm & Hammer line which includes baking soda and many other items made with it....
in USA).

It was advertised for its purported properties fighting tooth decay, attributed in advertisements to the supposed ingredient Irium.

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Encyclopedia

Pepsodent is a brand of toothpaste

Toothpaste

Wintergreen

Unilever

Church and Dwight

Ion

An ion is an atom or molecule which has lost or gained one or more electrons, giving it a positive or negative electrical charge. According to the Bohr_model this will be from or in the outer shield 'n'....
ic surfactant

Surfactant

Surfactants are wetting agents that lower the surface tension of a liquid, allowing easier spreading, and lower the interfacial tension between two liquids....
. However, in a 1994 speech, then-FCC

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an Independent agencies of the United States government, created, directed, and empowered by United States Congress statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President of the United States....
chairman Reed Hundt

Reed Hundt

Reed E. Hundt was chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, he served for most of Clinton's first term....
claimed that the "Irium" mentioned in Pepsodent advertisements "didn't exist".

Another ingredient, "I.M.P." was purported to whiten teeth. Its best-known slogan was “You'll wonder where the yellow went / when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!” British comedian Jasper Carrott

Jasper Carrott

Jasper Carrott Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom comedian , actor and TV presenter....
referred to the slogan in one of his stand-up

Stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy is a style of comedy where the performer speaks directly to the audience, with the absence of the theatrical "fourth wall". A person who performs stand-up comedy is known as a stand-up comic, stand-up comedian or more informally stand up....
routines, saying “On your tongue - that's where the yellow went!”

Pepsodent was a very popular brand before the mid '50s

1950s

The 1950s decade was the years of 1950 to 1959 inclusive. The Fifties in the developed western world are generally considered social conservative and highly Consumerism in nature....
, but its makers were slow to add fluoride

Fluoride

Fluoride is the Redox form of fluorine. Both organic compounds and inorganic compounds containing the chemical element fluorine are considered fluorides....
to its formula to counter the rise of other highly promoted brands such as Crest

Crest (brand)

Crest is a brand of toothpaste made by Procter & Gamble and sold worldwide. In many countries in Europe, such as Germany, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Poland and Romania, it is sold as Blend-A-Med, the name of an established Germany toothpaste acquired by P&G in 1987 ....
and Gleem toothpaste

Gleem toothpaste

Gleem is a brand of toothpaste made by the Procter & Gamble company. Advertisements in the 1950s stated that it has GL-70, a supposed odor- and bacteria-fighting compound....
by Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble Co. is a Fortune 500, United States multinational corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, that manufactures a wide range of Fast moving consumer goods....
, and Colgate's eponym

Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
ous product; sales of Pepsodent plummeted. Today Pepsodent is a “value brand” marketed primarily in discount stores and retails for roughly half the price of similarly-sized tubes of Crest or of Colgate.

In the 1930s a massive animated neon advertising sign, featuring a young girl on a swing, hung on a building in Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major intersection in Manhattan, a borough of New York City at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd Street to West 47th Street s....
in New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. This ad was re-created for the climax of the 2005 film King Kong
King Kong (2005 film)

King Kong is a 2005 remake of the King Kong about a fictional giant ape called King Kong. The film was directed by Peter Jackson and stars Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, Jack Black as Carl Denham, Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll and, through performance capture, Andy Serkis as Kong....
.

The product was discontinued in South Africa in 1974. The popular slogan was also changed in South Africa to "You'll wonder where the dullness went / when you polish your teeth with Pepsodent".

Pepsodent is still sold as a Unilever property in India, Indonesia , Chile, Finland, and several other countries.

In popular culture

Pepsodent was so popular that Rodgers and Hammerstein

Rodgers and Hammerstein

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known United States songwriter duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein....
included a reference to it in their long-running 1949 hit musical South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)

South Pacific is a 1949 in music#Musical theater with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan....
, when the Seabees sing about the native woman Bloody Mary:

Bloody Mary's chewing betel nuts
And she don't use Pepsodent.

It's also referenced in some versions of Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter from Peru, Indiana, Indiana.His works include the musical comedies Kiss Me, Kate , Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady and Anything Goes, as well as songs like "Night and Day ", "I Get a Kick out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!", "Two Little Babes In The Wood"...
's song You're The Top
You're the Top

"You're The Top" is a Cole Porter song from the 1934 musical Anything Goes. It is about a man and a woman who take turns complimenting each other....
:

You're the basic grand of a lady and a gent,
You're an old Dutch master, you're Mrs. Astor,
You're Pepsodent

Pepsodent

In popular culture

External links