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Listerine

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Listerine is a brand name for antiseptic mouthwash, named after Joseph Lister (father of modern antiseptics). Its medicinal taste is palliated slightly by a sweet flavor. Its slogan is "Kills germs that cause bad breath", though halitosis can return after use, even if nothing "extra" is placed in the mouth. This happens because saliva washes away the product, allowing the body's natural bacteria to repopulate the area.

Currently manufactured and distributed by Pfizer Inc., Listerine is one of the most popular mouthwashes sold in the U.S. (Proctor and Gamble's Scope being its main competitor). In the mid-1990s, Scope listed Rosie O'Donnell as the least-kissable celebrity in the U.S. She teamed up with Listerine to give money to charity every time she kissed someone on her talk show; this provided positive publicity for Listerine and harsh publicity for Scope, which O'Donnell trashed on her show.

The active ingredients are menthol, thymol, methyl salicylate, and eucalyptol, all of which are structural isomers. Ethanol or grain alcohol is present in concentrations between 21 and 26% w/v. At the concentrations in Listerine, ethanol per se does not have antimicrobial activity but rather serves to dissolve the active ingredients and to facilitate the penetration of the active ingredients into dental plaque. Currently, other types of Listerine include Antiseptic, Cool Mint, FreshBurst, Natural Citrus, Tartar Control, Advanced, and Whitening.

The Listerine brand name is also used on brands of toothpaste and on PocketPaks, a minty, dissolvable strip intended to instantly wash and refresh the mouth. In the late summer of 2005, Listerine began selling PocketMist, which is a breath-freshener in spray form.

History

from Freakonomics, p. 91:

Listerine was invented in the 19th century as a powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in a distilled form, as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis"—a then obscure medical term for bad breath. Listerine's new ads featured forlorn young women and men, eager for marriage but turned off by their mate's rotten breath. "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" one maiden asked herself. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered a catastrophe. But Listerine changed that. As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis." In just seven years, the company's revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million.

Cancer controversy

There is no evidence that its properties as a solvent, mainly from the 26.9% (in regular Listerine) alcohol, cause an easier reception of carcinogens. In other words, repeated use of Listerine does not increase the risk of oral cancer. Both the American Dental Association (ADA) and the United States National Cancer Institute (NCI) agree that the alcohol contained in antiseptic mouthrinse is safe and not a factor in oral cancers. Specific study reviews and results can be found in clinical reports by J.G. Elmore and R.I. Horowitz ["Oral cancer and mouthwash use: Evaluation of the epidemiologic evidence." Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1995;1(113):253–261] and Mashburg et al. ["A Study of the relationship between mouthwash use and oral and pharyngeal cancer." JADA, 1985.] which summarize that alcohol-containing mouth rinses are not associated with oral cancer.

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