Friday Photo: Toothpaste from Tehran

Posted By Blake Hounshell Friday, September 19, 2008 - 5:28 PM Share

A colleague passed along the following tube of Iranian toothpaste, hilariously designed to look like Crest:

Photo by Travis Daub for FP

"Improve your dental hygiene," it reads on the front. "For long lasting tooth."

On the back, it explains that Crend "helps your dentist to fight against tooth decay and cavity. Crend can help improve your oral hygiene significantly." The sodium flouride content is 0.32 percent.

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AJLONGINI

10:27 PM ET

September 19, 2008

a fresh take

The sodium fluoride content of Colgate Total is 0.24% and it is approved by the American Dental Association. So Crend actually sounds pretty good despite the name. I have always wondered about that though - how reliable is each country's national seal of dental approval? Guidelines for ADA acceptance are here:
http://www.ada.org/ada/seal/toothpaste.asp

I remember sometime over the summer noticing that my toothpaste of choice, Aquafresh, had lost its ADA seal. So I called them to ask why and apparently all company advertisements have to be approved by the ADA as well in order to keep the seal, and Aquafresh had had enough of it. Or at least that's what the customer service pitch was. In any case I switched to Colgate, I'm not taking chances.

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