Mentadent is a

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

for a line of dental products manufactured by

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

for its home and international markets excluding the United States and Canada where the company sold its rights to the brand to

Church & Dwight Church & Dwight Co., Inc. is an American consumer goods company focusing on personal care, household products, and specialty products. The company was founded in 1847 and is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey. It is the parent company of well-kno ...

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 it was thought that Unilever had quietly retired the Mentadent SR brand from the UK market, leaving only Mentadent P on sale. However, as of 2024, various Mentadent toothpastes were available to buy in

Asda Asda Stores Limited (), trading as Asda and often styled as ASDA, is a British supermarket and petrol station chain. Its headquarters is in Leeds, England. The company was incorporated as Associated Dairies and Farm Stores in 1949. It expanded ...

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 1954 The Television Act 1954 ( 2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 55) was a British law which permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom, ITV. Until the early 1950s, the only television service in Britain was operated ...

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. 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 in 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 that is used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics of Human tooth, teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from th ...

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 (or simply “bicarb” especially in the UK) is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt (chemistry), salt compose ...

and

peroxide In chemistry, peroxides are a group of Chemical compound, compounds with the structure , where the R's represent a radical (a portion of a complete molecule; not necessarily a free radical) and O's are single oxygen atoms. Oxygen atoms are joined ...

. Upon brushing, baking soda and peroxide combine to release

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

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 in the United States and Canada

See also

References