See our video podcast on the current Listerine product group, then see below for full transcript:
Hello everybody and welcome to this podcast episode. Today we are talking about a very popular product, Listerine. I will tell you, at my office, anytime we get samples, nothing flies off the shelf faster than Listerine. It is the ultimate crowd pleaser, at least for me at my office. Patients love it, they love getting their samples, and they love rinsing with it at my office. So I think it’s pretty important because Listerine has a very large product lineup and I want to go over all what they have to offer.
First, thank you to Carrie Anderson, she is my Listerine rep, she went through a lot of effort to get me all this information, because I was asking her a bunch of questions about the product, so I do appreciate that. All in all Listerine, believe it or not, has twelve different mouth rinses. I did not know that myself, I’m thinking they have two or three… Twelve different mouth rinses. Broken up into three major categories. Their antiseptic line, their anti-cavity line, and then their whitening line. So let’s get right into it.
Listerine Cool Mint is going to be your classic Listerine, that’s the one that you know, that’s been around for a long time. It has a blue color, and this is going to be their anti-gingivitis product, and this is going to have the four essential oils, if you’re looking to see what’s in those, you can google that, they have all the different essential oils, this is going to be the ones you’re going to feel burning your mouth, this is the ones that most people are familiar with, and the one that we have in our office. One thing to know about the Cool Mint, it does have alcohol in it. I’ll get into some of their non-alcohol products shortly, so the only I would probably recommend is for people that kind of avoid alcohol for any reasons, and people that are prone to dry mouth, you probably want to avoid the lines of Listerine that has alcohol in it, because alcohol can tend to dry your mouth out. With that being said, definitely Listerine shows a reduction in gingivitis, which is good. Not to be confused with periodontitis, not gum disease, gingivitis is just the inflammation of the gums, the redness in the gums and possibly some bleeding that it would reduce as well.
Next up is their Ultraclean. This is going to be their tartar control line, this is for people that are trying to reduce the amount of tartar on their teeth. It’s pretty important not to confuse this with another common anti-tartar ingredient, triclosan is an ingredient that Listerine does not put in any of their products. Triclosan is another common ingredient for anti-tartar toothpaste. Most commonly Colgate Total. Recently there’s been headlines about Colgate Total because it has triclosan in it, which triclosan has been linked to some cancers or some other health problems, and so Listerine has decided to have no triclosan in any of their products. So the question is with their Ultraclean line, what is their target control formula? The answer is zinc chloride. Not sure how zinc chloride works, don’t really know much about it, but it’s probably important to know that that’s their anti-tartar ingredient. It also has something called Everfresh, you’ll see on the bottle, if you see that on a bottle of Listerine, that is their proprietary formula that helps keep people’s mouths fresher for up to three times longer. So often times you’ll see Listerine Ultraclean with Everfresh.
Next up, you’re going to see white bottles of Listerine. These are most commonly going to be their Natural line of products. And if you see the Listerine Naturals, these are going to be for people that are trying to avoid any kind of artificial flavoring or colors. All these Listerines are free of artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, or dye. They are also equally as effective as Listerine, so they do have the essential oils, so they still work the same way. Probably of note, what I’ve noticed, is the flavor is probably not as memorable. That’s my experience, because I’ve tried it. But for people that are trying to go the organic or more natural way, if they want to avoid the flavors and colors and such, you’re going to want to go after the Naturals line.
So Listerine also has two product lines, one is called Listerine Soft Mint, and one that’s called Listerine Zero. If you see something that says Soft Mint, this is basically their version of less intense, it’s going to have less intense flavor, than the regular Listerine. I didn’t notice much difference myself, I didn’t notice it to be less intense, but I didn’t notice it to be any worse, or anything like that, I noticed it to be pleasant as well. Anything that says Listerine Zero, this is going to be, as I noted before, their alcohol-free line. So they’re going to have the same essential oils, and they’re going to have no alcohol. So for somebody who’s trying to avoid alcohol, for any reason, or if you’re prone to dry mouth because you take lots of medications, you’re probably going to want to go with Listerine Zero, or something with no alcohol in it.
Next up is Listerine’s Whitening line. These are also going to come in white bottles, and Listerine has no peroxide in any of their whitening products. A lot of whitening products we use in dentistry have either carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide. Listerine has decided not to have any peroxide in their whitening mouth rinses, and instead they have two ingredients, tetrasodium pyrophosphate and pentasodium triphosphate. One thing about mouth whitening over the counter products. We’ll cover this with our whitening podcast in a future date, but I have a lot of patients who wanted whitening, and they wanted to use an over the counter product, and I’m often times encouraging it as I think a lot of people can get benefit. A lot of people go to a whitening toothpaste first. The problem with whitening toothpaste is they tend to be very abrasive, and I don’t like that, I tend to have patients avoid whitening toothpaste because of how abrasive they typically are. So if you are going to try an over the counter whitening product, it would be my recommendation to use a whitening mouth rinse, or there’s plenty different products out there, but if I had to choose between a mouth rinse and a toothpaste, I would definitely use a mouth rinse. With that being said I’m not sure how well tetrasodium pyrophosphate and pentasodium triphosphate work. I don’t know, I haven’t seen any studies with those, but clearly Listerine puts them in there for whitening.
Next up you’re going to see their Total Care line. So when you see a Listerine Total Care, that’s going to be under their restoring-type line, and this is going to be Listerine with fluoride in it. So be advised that the Total Care, anything you see Total Care has sodium fluoride. This is for importance for people that are trying to either get more fluoride in their mouth rinse, or some people trying to avoid fluoride. Any which way you stand on this situation, just be aware that the Total Care has fluoride in it.
Under the same umbrella they have what’s called a Smart Rinse. This is more for children. This is kind of an interesting product, it has what’s called CPC, which is an ingredient in there that sort of acts like a magnet to different food particles, and it actually sort of clumps up and makes these little clumps, in the mouth rinse. The reason that is in there, and the reason it’s called Smart Rinse, is so for children, when they rinse their mouth out, and they get the fluorine in their teeth, when they spit it out, into a typically white sink, you actually see these colored specks, and that’s supposed to be used as a learning tool for the children to see that they’re actually doing something, and it’s kind of a learning tool to show the kids that they’re getting all these particles off their teeth. Kind of a cool concept, I used it, yes it shows up these little red speckles, I think. So I think it’s pretty intuitive and it’s a nice feature for kids that are trying to learn.
Overall, hope you guys enjoyed the Listerine product line. There’s a lot out there, I hope you learned something from this podcast, I know when I first saw their product line, I was kind of confused, so with the help of my rep and a little bit of research, I hope this information helps you guys choose what Listerine product you like. Thank you.