Mentadent is a

brand name A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

for a line of dental products manufactured by

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...

for its home and international markets excluding the United States and Canada where the company sold its rights to the brand to Church & Dwight Company in 2003. In 2016, Church & Dwight announced it would discontinue the Mentadent brand effective Spring 2017. As it only involved the rights for US and Canadian sales, this did not affect Unilever which still markets and sells Mentadent branded products in other markets. In 2018 Unilever quietly retired the Mentadent SR brand from the UK market, leaving only Mentadent P on sale. Mentadent P has since been discontinued along with the rest of the Mentadent Range from the UK market.

History

Unilever first introduced the brand around 1982 with the launch of Mentadent P, Mentadent later became the key brand for Unilever toothpaste and Gibbs SR, a brand that dated back to the 1950s, was renamed Mentadent SR.

First UK television advert

Mentadent SR, formerly Gibbs SR, is one of three toothpaste products still marketed by

worldwide. The product was originally named after its active ingredient, sodium ricinoleate. Gibbs SR was the first product to be promoted on UK television. The introduction of commercial television advertising was due to the Television Act of 1954 which created the commercial broadcaster ITV. The advertisement was first shown on

Associated-Rediffusion Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion London, was the British ITV franchise holder for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 22 September 1955 and 29 July 1968. It was the first ITA franchisee to go on air, ...

in London on 22 September 1955 at 8.12pm BST, with a voiceover by

Alex Macintosh Alex Macintosh (18 November 1925 – 7 September 1997)Alex Macintosh at the IMDb
Retrieved 26 October ...

. The advertisement was written and produced by Brian Palmer.

Toothpaste

Unilever makes 3 varieties of toothpaste under the Mentadent brand #Mentadent P Toothpaste #Mentadent Sensitive Toothpaste #Mentadent SR Toothpaste (Discontinued)

Post-2003 brand within the United States and Canada

In 2003, Church & Dwight Company acquired the United States and Canadian rights to the Mentadent brand from Unilever and then operated it as a subsidiary brand of Arm & Hammer until it discontinued sales of the brand in 2016. Mentadent is most notable for its unique

toothpaste Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from the teeth, ...

dispenser: a dual chamber pump. This design is intended to keep two ingredients separated until they are dispensed. Upon brushing, the ingredients will react with each other in the user's mouth. Both the toothpaste (formula) and the design of the pump were invented and then patented by Hans Schaeffer - who later sold the patent. In the majority of its toothpaste lines, the two separate ingredients are

baking soda Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda, is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt composed of a sodium cation ( Na+) and a bicarbonate anion ( HCO3� ...

and

peroxide In chemistry, peroxides are a group of compounds with the structure , where R = any element. The group in a peroxide is called the peroxide group or peroxo group. The nomenclature is somewhat variable. The most common peroxide is hydrogen p ...

. Upon brushing, baking soda and peroxide combine to release

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements ...

bubbles. It is claimed that these bubbles will clean, whiten, and freshen the mouth. ;Varieties *Mentadent Replenishing White *Mentadent Advanced Whitening *Mentadent Advanced Cleaning with Breath Freshening *Mentadent Advanced Care *Mentadent White System

References

{{Church & Dwight Brands of toothpaste Church & Dwight brands Unilever brands

History

First UK television advert

Toothpaste

Post-2003 brand within the United States and Canada

See also

References