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Crest 3D White "Radiant Mint"

FLAVOR: Radiant Mint
BRAND: Crest 3D White
ADA ACCEPTED: No
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Target brand

Way to jump on the 3D bandwagon, Crest.

I'm not sure how Crest can even justify labeling this toothpaste "3D": 1) I squeeze the tube and it doesn't shoot toothpaste toward my face. 2) The toothpaste is a pearly, speckled cyan, but shouldn't it also be red? 3) It doesn't contain any unnecessary scenes of disgusting alien ponytail-sex.

It's just another gross mint-flavored toothpaste.

Real talk

@GhostfaceKillah

Colgate MaxFresh with MINI BREATH STRIPS

FLAVOR: CoolMint

BRAND: Colgate MaxFresh

ADA ACCEPTED: No
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Colgate "the cheap kind on the bottom shelf in the Rocky Hill Walmart"

I ogle this tube as I scan the travel toiletries: metallic blue with an image of breath strips bursting forth from a tiny, glittering dollop of magic. Upon closer inspection, I discover an enticing statement to coincide with the visual: "Infused with Dissolvable Mini Breath Strips" to "Experience a Whole New Dimension of Freshness." I love metallic blue. I love glitter. I love gels infused with goodies that glitter. I love expanding my horizons in fresh experiences. It’s perfect!

I should have realized from the blue packaging and the dazzling blue smear, that this toothpaste would, in fact, be blue gel. Suddenly I’m seven. I’m begging my mom for blue-raspberry-flavored liquid candy in the checkout line. She snorts and hands me blue tooth gel instead. The texture of gel makes me shudder—like when I hear extremely dry hands lightly graze a soft sweater and the skin, like thousands of tiny human Velcro claws, snags on the sweater. Despite these setbacks, I proceed. The prospect of dissolvable breath strips in my toothpaste is too exciting.

The foam is blue, but minty—I half expect it to taste bubble-gummy. I feel guilty as if I just brushed my teeth with Pixy Stix, but I have no sugar high; only fresh breath. I don't notice the breath strips.

In sum, Colgate MaxFresh with MINI BREATH STRIPS fluoride toothpaste is neat-looking and a super-exciting idea, but it is more like Ho-HumFresh with FD&C blue no. 1 fluoride tooth gel. A more appropriate image to depict: toothless women in eastern Europe carrying baskets of fruit, dipping their fingers into a tub of MaxFresh gel, and gently massaging their gums. Now that's worth infusing a breath strip or two!

Aquafresh Extreme Clean "Original Experience" (re-review)

FLAVOR: Original Experience
BRAND: Aquafresh Extreme Clean
ADA ACCEPTED: No
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Target brand

When you travel by airplane, your choice of portable, TSA-sized toothpaste tubes is severely limited. I hastily bought a 0.8oz tube of Aquafresh Extreme Clean without re-reading my original review of the toothpaste. Bad idea. This toothpaste still tastes like mint, still tastes like chemicals, and still tastes disgusting. I used maybe half of the tiny tube over the course of my four-day trip and am having a very hard time finishing the rest now that I'm home. (Apparently I'm also having a very hard time throwing away a quarter's worth of crappy toothpaste.) One other thing that hasn't changed with this toothpaste: EXTREME foam. Granted, I was distracted by my iPhone in a lame attempt at multitasking, but I almost choked to death on foam last time I brushed my teeth with this toothpaste.

For your health

Aquafresh Extreme Clean "Original Experience"

FLAVOR: Original Experience
BRAND: Aquafresh Extreme Clean
ADA ACCEPTED: No
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Colgate 360°

This toothpaste comes in a neat plastic box, but it totally sucks.

If you expect this toothpaste's "Original Experience" to take you back to the wistful olden days of soda shoppes, stickball, and brushing your teeth with tooth-powder and a wooden toothbrush, you will be sorely disappointed. If you expect its "Extreme Clean" to taste like Mountain Dew, Rollerblades, or BMX bicycles, you will be sorely disappointed.

Because—surprise!—this toothpaste tastes like mint. The paste itself is a lovely swirl of creamy white and pearlescent orange, so you would expect it to taste like an orange Creamsicle or something, but of course it doesn't. You might think it has a slight citrus aroma as you brush your teeth, but this is only your brain tricking you with a phantom sensation to compensate for the regret you have from purchasing such a disappointing toothpaste.

Obviously it cleans your teeth (it's toothpaste, for god's sake, it had better fucking clean your teeth). But to the point of extremity? Of course not.

If this toothpaste has anything going for it, it's that it gets really foamy when you brush. EXTREMELY foamy? Yes, extremely foamy.

Of interest

nuxx.net blog: 23 Tubes 1 Bowl

Crest Pro-Health "Clean Night Mint"

FLAVOR: Clean Night Mint
BRAND: Crest Pro-Health
ADA ACCEPTED: No
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Colgate 360°

The problem with maintaining a toothpaste-themed blog is that I don't buy toothpaste very often. I brush my teeth at least twice a day and an average tube of toothpaste still lasts me about two months. Also, I am incredibly lazy.

ANYWAY, first things first: you can use Crest Pro-Health "Clean Night Mint" to brush your teeth in the morning. Good thing, because fuck if I have to buy two different toothpastes.

"Clean Night Mint" is "formulated with a unique nighttime flavor," also known as MINT. The rather misleading "night" label on this toothpaste has absolutely nothing to do with flavor. I was half expecting this toothpaste to contain some sort of mildly hypnotic sedative, lulling me into the cool, inky dark of night, a gateway to a refreshing, minty dreamscape (I wish: it's three-something AM on a Monday night and instead of SLEEPING I'm writing about TOOTHPASTE). I guess, then, I was automatically half-disappointed by this toothpaste. It's just mint. It tastes good, but it's just mint.

One thing I did notice about "Clean Night Mint," though, is that it does, to a point, leave you with a "cleaner mouth in the morning." For a while before I started using "Clean Night Mint" I had been waking up with what I charmingly referred to as "teeth skin." It was some kind of opaque white gunk that I would find layered upon my front teeth, most likely a combination of dried saliva and dead gum tissue. I can't empirically vouch for "Clean Night Mint" remedying my teeth skin (probably not; besides, I'd rather not have to rely on gimmicky toothpastes to take care of my disgusting hygienic problems), but, for the sake of full disclosure, I did notice a slight difference after I started using the toothpaste. Not to say it was an enjoyable difference, though. The toothpaste left my inner lips and gums feeling dry and vaguely slick, as if they had been completely stripped of any natural emollients they once possessed. Uncomfortably clean, perhaps? So I guess I can't really qualify my mouth as feeling "cleaner" as much as it felt "less like somebody jizzed in my mouth while I was sleeping." Not that I know what that feels like.

Arm & Hammer Advance White "Freshilliant Smintarkle"

FLAVOR: Brilliant Sparkle and/or Fresh Mint
BRAND: Arm & Hammer Advance White
ADA ACCEPTED: No
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Colgate 360°

I'm not sure if this toothpaste is supposed to taste like "Brilliant Sparkle" or "Fresh Mint." "Brilliant Sparkle" is printed in a much more prominent typeface than "Fresh Mint," but then again, "Brilliant Sparkle" isn't exactly a flavor. This toothpaste certainly tastes like mint, but I would hesitate to call the flavor "fresh." It's a very astringent mint, burning the sinuses like horseradish or, I don't know, gasoline. It has a slightly woody sweetness, a little like coconut; I guess it tastes like a mint-flavored toothpick. But more than anything, this toothpaste tastes like baking soda, to which I say HOLY GROSS.