The Most Beautiful Smile

From April 12 to June 1, 2016, the "La más bella sonrisa" (The Most Beautiful Smile) exhibition brought together a large collection of advertising posters, dentifrices, toothbrushes, and all manner of oral hygiene tools.

Dental Advertising for Children

The main aim of children's advertising is to establish good hygiene habits from an early age, and it helps engage the parents in doing that.

A Curious Piece of Advice

The book, Diseases of Women II from the Hippocratic Corpus, includes the following remedy: when a woman notices a bad smell in her mouth and sees that her gums are black and diseased, you should separately roast a hare's head and three mice, two of which should have their guts removed, except the liver and the kidneys.Crush white stone or marble in a stone mortar and sift it. Then, mix it all up in equal parts and rub it onto the teeth. It is also advisable to rub it around the entire mouth.

Various formulations of sodium perborate, the most popular powder dentifrice of the mid-20th century.

Linguistic Battles

In Book III of Strabo's Geographica, he claims that the men of Iberia "do not attend to ease or luxury, unless anyone considers it can add to the happiness of their lives to wash themselves and their wives in stale urine kept in tank, and to rinse their teeth with it, which they say is the custom both with the Cantabrians and their neighbors.This practice, as well as that of sleeping on the ground, is common both among the Iberians and Kelts."

The Smile: the Driving Force behind Hygiene

The history of dentifrices is inextricably linked to the smile and its significance for the human race. A promise of the perfect smile would, in time, become the most effective advertising claim for toothpaste. Ultimately, in the words of author Max Eastman, "a smile is the universal welcome". It is incredibly important in the world of human relationships, which goes some way to explaining the long-standing tradition of using preparations on a daily basis to help achieve the perfect smile.

Sodium Perborate

Few formulas have been as effective or successful as sodium perborate. From the beginning of the 20th century, it became the formula most commonly used by the general public, and it is still used to this day. Its popularity is largely down to its proclaimed "whitening action" on tooth enamel. As a detergent solution, the release of oxygen from the perborate molecule produces an oxidizing action that causes bleaching.In powder form, it was widely marketed with the addition of the word "dental," with dental perborate being one of the most popular dentifrice products.

The word "dentifrice" derives from the Latin dentifriciu(m), made up of dente(m) (tooth), fric(are) (to rub), and i-um. It therefore simply means to rub the teeth with a certain compound.

The Evolution of Dentifrices

Originally, powder preparations were used, made by grinding corals, seashells, and other abrasive ingredients. Powders from plants such as cinnamon or mint were added to give them a pleasant scent. A fingertip, cloth, or sponge would be used instead of a brush, which only became the standard tool in the 19th century. After the powders came other formulations such as dental soaps, pastes and, later, gels and elixirs. The brush would be coated with any of these products and then rubbed onto the teeth.

Dental liquids, elixirs, and spirits. Even hydrogen peroxide had a dual purpose: it could be used both as an antiseptic and a tooth whitener.

The advertising message always remains the same: use this dentifrice every day and you too could have a winning smile.