PEPSODENT's origin: United States
Brand description:
Pepsodent is a brand of toothpaste with a minty flavour derived from Sassafras. The brand is owned by Unilever, but in 2003 the rights to the brand in the United States and Canada were bought by Church and Dwight. The history of Pepsodent goes back at least to the 1920s. It was advertised for its purported properties fighting tooth decay, attributed in advertisements to the supposed ingredient Irium. Irium is another word for sodium lauryl sulfate, an inexpensive ionic surfactant. However, in a 1994 speech, then-FCC chairman Reed Hundt claimed that the "Irium" mentioned in Pepsodent advertisements "didn't exist".