Here's your ONE drop:
In 1915 only about 7% of Americans even had toothpaste. Claude Hopkins, legendary ad man and professional bullshit artist, got hired to sell Pepsodent. He rebranded plaque as "the film." Something you could feel with your tongue. Something making teeth dull. Brushing would remove it and prevent cavities.
Scientists called bullshit. Cavity bacteria live in cracks brushes can't reach. Scientific councils labeled oral hygiene products cosmetics and moved on.
But Pepsodent had citric acid and mint that made your mouth tingle. That buzz became the loop. Within a decade most of America was brushing daily. Not because brushing worked. Because the clean feeling felt like winning.
Then fluoride arrived. The actual hero. The only toothpaste ingredient proven to prevent cavities. Brushing without it has zero impact on cavity rates. Zero. Decades of data, same answer.
But Hopkins told the better story. So we gave scrubbing the credit and built an entire national habit on a lie.
Fluoride free toothpaste is now a multibillion dollar category growing at roughly mid single digit rates each year. People think the mechanical action matters. It doesn't. They're removing the only ingredient that works because they still believe Hopkins' lie from 1920.
And those of us using fluoride toothpaste rinse immediately after brushing. Guilty for almost forty years. You're supposed to spit and leave the fluoride on your teeth.
I also bought fluoride-free mouthwash for years. Felt very responsible. It did nothing except make my breath smell like peppermint for twelve minutes.
Doing great.
// Ann
Want to know how I discovered this? Read the full research process here.
