Oral-B Glide is a

polytetrafluoroethylene Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications. It is one of the best-known and widely applied PFAS. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemo ...

(Teflon) dental floss manufactured by

W. L. Gore and Associates W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. is an American multinational manufacturing company specializing in products derived from fluoropolymers. It is a privately held corporation headquartered in Newark, Delaware. It is best known as the developer of wate ...

exclusively for

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

History

Origin

The origin of Glide (which is what the brand was called prior to the P&G acquisition) dates to 1971, when Bill Gore first used a

Gore-Tex Gore-Tex is a waterproof, breathable fabric membrane and registered trademark of W. L. Gore & Associates. Invented in 1969, Gore-Tex can repel liquid water while allowing water vapor to pass through and is designed to be a lightweight, waterpr ...

fiber to floss his own teeth; Gore-Tex was the PTFE-based fiber he had invented as a "waterproof laminate." The company failed to market the product for more than three decades. Ultimately, it succeeded by marketing to

dentists A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofacial comp ...

rather than selling the floss as a consumer product. It was widely adopted, and grew to be the #1 brand of floss in dental office use, and #2 floss in retail.

Sale to Procter & Gamble

In September 2003, Gore sold the brand to Procter & Gamble, who at the time announced its intention to brand the product under the

Crest Crest or CREST may refer to: Buildings *The Crest (Huntington, New York), a historic house in Suffolk County, New York *"The Crest", an alternate name for 63 Wall Street, in Manhattan, New York *Crest Castle (Château Du Crest), Jussy, Switzerla ...

product line. The terms of the sale provided that Gore would continue to manufacture and develop the product. In 2010, Procter & Gamble rebranded the product as

Oral-B Oral-B is an American brand of oral hygiene products, including toothpastes, toothbrushes, electric toothbrushes, and mouthwashes. The brand has been in business since the invention of the Hutson toothbrush in 1950 and in Redwood City, Californ ...

Glide.

Popularity and sales

In 2006, Crest Glide was the second-ranked brand of dental floss in the United States, with sales (in supermarkets and drug stores) of $22 million and a market share of 18.8%, just behind

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

Reach.

Environmental and health concerns

Environmentalists have recommended non-PTFE brands, discouraging the use of the environmentally unfriendly Teflon. There is also a health concern given the use of

perfluorooctanoic acid Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA; conjugate base perfluorooctanoate; also known colloquially as C8, for its 8 carbon chain structure) is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in chemical processes an ...

, a possible carcinogen, in the making of Teflon. A 2019 study showed that some women who had flossed with Glide had elevated levels of perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS) in their blood compared to non-flossers, and fluorine compounds were identified in Glide (as well as 5 other brands of floss out of 18 brands tested). Procter & Gamble, however, disputes this finding. "The study, led by

Silent Spring Institute Silent Spring Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to studying and reporting primarily on breast cancer prevention, although its research covers other health-related topics as well. Founding and purpose The nonprofit organization was f ...

in collaboration with the

Public Health Institute In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

in Berkeley, CA, appears online ... in the

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology The ''Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology (JESEE)'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal focused on exposure science for professionals in a wide range of environmental and public health disciplines. It was established in 199 ...

(JESEE), and is part of a special issue dedicated to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances)."

References

External links

*{{official website, https://oralb.com/en-us/products/compare/floss Procter & Gamble brands Oral hygiene Dental equipment American inventions