Pepsodent
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Pepsodent is a brand of toothpaste formerly owned by Unilever.
It was best known for its purported whitening properties originating from its alleged ingredient “Irium”. (Irium is generally identified as sodium lauryl sulfate, an inexpensive ionic surfactant. “Irium” is also the name of a radioactive compound.) Pepsodent was a very popular brand before the mid '50s, but its makers were slow to add fluoride to its formula to counter the rise of other highly promoted brands such as Crest and Gleem by Procter & Gamble, and Colgate's eponymous product; sales of Pepsodent plummeted. Today Pepsodent is a “value brand” marketed primarily in discount store and retails for roughly half the price of similarly-sized tubes of Crest or of Colgate.
Its best-known“You'll wonder where the yellow went / when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”]
In the New York scene of both the 1933 and 2005 films King Kong, 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 & Hammer baking soda.
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