It’s about time for a little rant. It turns out that having lots of choice is not the end-all of freedom, as much as promoters of democracy, freedom and the American Way would like us to believe.
Take toothpaste, for example. I recently went to the drugstore to buy some toothpaste. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I ended up walking out of the store totally frustrated.
I’ve been a loyal fan of Colgate toothpaste for easily forty-five to fifty years. I tried Crest for a while, dabbled with Tom’s, but mostly it’s been Colgate. Colgate was just fine. Simple, white, plain toothpaste with some fluoride. No problem. I’ve watched with trepidation over the years, the introduction of different looking boxes with the Colgate logo on them, but bypassed them completely, knowing where to direct my eyes on the shelf, to the red and white box of the regular brand. I think I must have loaded up last year during a sale.
Then, this year the plain red and white box with the plain white toothpaste became extinct, replaced by some twenty different varieties on the shelf. Now Colgate makes TOTAL; PROCLINICAL WHITE PASTE (in the blue box); PROCLINICAL GEL; ADVANCED WHITENING; ADVANCED CLEAN; GUM DEFENSE; ENAMEL STRENGTH; MINT STRIPE; MAX WHITE (with mini bright strips); MAX CLEAN WITH SMART FOAM [[[smart foam?]]]; MAX FRESH with mini breath strips; LUMINOUS CRYSTAL CLEAN MINT—Ahhhhhhh!!!—SENSITIVE MULTIPROTECTION; SESITIVE ENAMEL PROTECTION; SENSITIVE WHITENING; SPARKLING WHITE MINT ZING—God help us!!!!—SPARKLING WHITE CINNA MINT; TARTAR PROTECTION WHITENING CRISP MINT PASTE or CRISP MINT GEL; ULTRABRITE ADVANCED WHITENING. And those don’t include the brands for kids.
What marketing MBA did Colgate hire to come up with all those registered and trade-marked brands? Please! Let’s 'up' the lithium dose a bit. It’s like, how many different models of a VW bug do we need? Is this what the world of facebooking tweeters want?
Okay, I'm finished with the rant.
Way down that list, I discovered CAVITY PROTECTION GREAT REGULAR FLAVOR. Eureka! Might that possibly be a re-branded version of what I was hoping to find in the first place? I’ll give it a try if I can find it on the shelf, buried beneath the other varieties.
Wow! I can't believe I found someone else who misses the ORIGINAL, red & white box Colgate toothpaste, that had been around over 50 years!
ReplyDeleteAnd, let me tell you, the boxes of it you DO find today are NOT the same formula! It foams more, it blobs out of the tube, not the neat strip that used to show up!
And, don't even get me started about how it WORKS--or, should I say, DOESN'T, work! I've never had gingivitis EVER, until recently! And I've been brushing my teeth, the same way, with the same type toothpaste, forever--until they changed the formula!
Why on Earth would Colgate change something that was SO PERFECT!? It's the ONLY product that I've used ALL my LIFE!
Thanks for posting this. Frankly, I hadn't even thought about blogging my disappointment and distress, but I'm glad your post allowed me to!
(And, believe me, I've already tried a bunch of the other "types" and they're not even a PALE comparison of the once-perfect Classic, red & white box Colgate original toothpaste!!)
Yes, watching Colgate deteriorate in quality and dilute itself into scores of pop-culture varieties has been one piece of watching the insidious corporate takeover of our lives, our country. We are told everything is new and improved, but we know it is less quantity, all about image, poorer quality than the last version, and more expensive with every iteration. Thank you for your comment!
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