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.
—Michael
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.
—Michael
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.
—Michael
FLAVOR: Paradise Fresh
BRAND: Colgate Luminous
ADA ACCEPTED: Yes
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Oral-B something-or-other
Colgate Luminous "Paradise Fresh" is the toothpaste equivalent of Jimmy Buffett: kinda shitty. Jimmy Buffett sings about tropical islands and drinking margaritas and eating cheeseburgers, but his songs are actually terrible. Colgate Luminous "Paradise Fresh" comes in a purple tube with a picture of a diamond and a palm tree on it, but it tastes like mint and makes me want to throw up (not unlike Jimmy Buffett). Why would a toothpaste called "Paradise Fresh" taste like mint? Shouldn't it taste like piña coladas? And why would they put a picture of a diamond on it when it clearly did not turn my teeth into diamonds? Also, Jimmy Buffett sucks.
—Michael
FLAVOR: Clean Cinnamon
BRAND: Crest Pro-Health
ADA ACCEPTED: Yes
TOOTHBRUSH USED: Target brand
Crest Pro-Health "Clean Cinnamon" is a smooth, creamy paste with a noticeably fine grit. The paste itself is an impossibly slight pinkish-white with a mixture of minuscule red particles. The red particles, I would imagine, are what give the paste its gritty texture. I like to imagine that these little bits of ruby are crushed Red Hots candies, for this is what the paste tastes of. It is a gentle cinnamon spice, backed by a very soft sweetness, like a marshmallow. I guess what I am getting at is Crest Pro-Health "Clean Cinnamon" tastes like candy. The paste does not foam very much when brushed and leaves the mouth with a sweet and pleasantly cool - not cold - aftertaste.
—Michael
FLAVOR: Original Experience
