Pepsodent

Pepsodent is a brand of toothpaste formerly owned by Unilever.

Pepsodent was a very popular brand in the early days of mass media, and was the sponsor of many of the early network programs of both radio and television. Its makers were slow to add fluoride to its formula to counter the rise of other highly promoted brands made with it such as Crest and Gleem by Procter & Gamble, and Colgate's eponymous product, and sales plummeted. Today Pepsodent, which now has fluoride, is a "value brand" marketed primarily in discount store and retails for roughly half the price of similarly-sized tubes of Colgate and Crest.

It was best known for its purported whitening properties originating from its ingredient "Irium," which may not have been an actual ingredient. Irium is actually a radioactive compound which indeed whitens teeth at first, but prolonged usage could have deadly effects on the users. Irium is no longer used in Pepsodent due to many lawsuits. Its best-known advertising jingle was ["You'll wonder where the yellow went / when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!"] Pepsodent was known as a sponsor of the Amos 'n' Andy radio show [link].

In the New York scene of both the 1933 and 2005 King Kong films, a Pepsodent sign is a very prominent advertisement; a massive animated neon sign hangs on a building in Times Square.

The brand was purchased in 2003 by Church and Dwight, best known as the makers of Arm and Hammer baking soda.

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