I have half a tube left of “actual red toothpaste” in my bathroom right now.
Some of these things might be regional. It could be people in my area are more open to red toothpaste than in your area. Prior posters have mentioned that Japan might have had a yellow, banana-flavored toothpaste at some point so maybe the Japanese don’t see it as something weird, but parts of American or Europe would.
Oh, it’s out there …
Here is a clay toothpaste - it kinds looks like Nutella, or…
Close-up Toothpaste was red (going back to my childhood.) Does it still exist? Is it still red?
Yes to all of the above. Currently on sale on the Meijer website:
Pus. Which might explain the colour is not widely used.
Well, the ancient Japanese customs were different:
I would suspect that, at some point, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, and/or Unilever did some testing of a yellow toothpaste (likely banana or lemon flavored, I’d guess). And, I also suspect that feedback among test consumers was, “It looks like snot” or “it looks like pus,” and even if they liked the flavor, they weren’t happy with the color.
That, plus yellow being the color you don’t want your teeth to be (at least as a Western ideal) and associated with “bad” teeth, it seems like it would be a hard sell.
Weird that so many images of toothpaste tubes, but few show the stuff inside. My wife uses cinnamon toothpaste that’s bright red. My son has watermelon flavored toothpaste, which is a disturbingly florescent green.
At least of of my duty stations switched to grape toothpaste at the dental clinic. It was purple, and incredibly disgusting. I do think that had more to do with using mint toothpaste my entire life and other flavors just seemed wrong.
I also tried some black activated charcoal toothpaste. It tasted okay. The froth was not black, more of a light grey. That was disappointing.
Because of the way light interacts with the surface of bubbles, froth is always going to tend towards white.
Let me see if I can dredge up the jingle–
Come a little closer, baby, smile for me,
I need a Close Up smile from you,
I need a Close Up smile
?
I wonder if the OP has me on block, because I see no response to my post.
Yellow dyes are terribly staining, regardless of whether they’re naturally based or artificially. Again, ever tried to remove a French’s mustard stain from clothing? Oxygen bleaches and chlorine bleaches barely touch them. And you can’t use chlorine bleach on your teeth.
In addition to what @Didi44 reports, I can confirm that they are (or recently were) selling Minions-branded banana-flavoured toothpaste here in Vienna. (Not sure if it’s a regular item or if it was a tie-in to the most recent film.) I bought some last year and seem to remember that it was pale yellow in colour.
I’m also pretty sure that the Indian grocery store here sells yellow toothpaste. It’s been years since I bought any, so I don’t remember what flavour it is—I’m thinking maybe cloves or cardamom.
I haven’t tried charcoal toothpaste because I assume the taste would be akin to chewing on a charcoal briquette.
Does anyone remember some years back when there was different colored ketchup? I think it was aimed at kids and it came in funky colors like green and purple. Literally no difference other than the dye used to color it and yet I would not eat it if you paid me to. Heinz Nightmare Fuel.
Yeah, that was like early 00s.
Before charcoal “oil pulling” was popular among hippie pseudoscience circles. Still is probably. Swishing around coconut or other oil which is supposed to promote oral health among other things. Probably just need to make the market rather than assume there’s a good reason why yellow toothpaste doesn’t exist.
Why is there no yellow toothpaste?
For about the same reason stay-in toilet cleaning tablets make the toilet water blue. People are turned-off by the “wrong” color in consumer products. For toothpaste one “wrong” color would be yellow because as already mentioned, it is the color of stained teeth and plaque.
Toilet cleaners are blue (I believe) because when you add yellow liquid (urine) to the blue water it still has a pleasant enough greenish color. Just about any other color but blue would look worse when yellow liquid is added to it.
ETA: hmmm… I see racer72 already commented on a similar theme
IMO, your post would be so much better if you said what that slogan was.
And if that’s not weird enough for you, try the “mystery color”.
Even Walmart got into the action with their store brand ketchup.
I don’t have you on block, I just didn’t feel a need to comment on your post. Your arguments are sound and I agree with them in regards to yellow dyes causing stains. I’m not entirely convinced that’s the only obstacle to yellow toothpaste (several others have also been mentioned) but it’s something that I hadn’t considered when I wrote the OP.