Punch & Judy: Shake To Activate

A colleagues accident at home this morning took me on a tangent trip down memory lane - toothpaste to be specific.

After exchanging pleasantries, she revealed that she had spilled a little mouthwash on her blouse and I replied that we had this strange horrible mouthwash at home whereby the bottle is required to be shaken vigourously to activate its contents which is just ridiculous. The bottle contains two layers of liquid - one blueish and one greenish. Once shaken they combine to a foamy mess.

Here's the mouthwash in question: Dentyl pH Smooth Mint. You're supposed to pour half a cap full out and rinse for 30 seconds, followed by 30 seconds of gargling, before spitting the stuff out and 'seeing the results' in the sink. I concede to rinsing it around my mouth and 30 seconds seems appropriate but then gargling it for a further half a minute? Have you ever tried this? After 5 seconds you're ready to quit. Can you imagine hearing this from an ajoining bedroom? You'd think something was wrong.

To add insult to injury the stuff tastes horrible and after spitting it out, it leaves green blobs on your tongue and you want to use another mouthwash just to get rid of it.

But I digress. The conversation we had turned to toothpaste and in particular, I remembered one I used as a child - Punch & Judy toothpaste.

It's great to see that this is still being made. It's pretty difficult to get a child to brush their teeth but if the toothpaste is a tasty strawberry flavour then the job becomes a lot easier. Now as an adult, everything has to have a mint zing, a lightning white finish and computer graphics to persuade us.

It's a shame they don't make a punch and judy version of mouthwash because if you were on the recieving end I think I'd rather kiss someone and get a faint hit of strawberry than a ultra-mega mint zing especially if you look at women's lip balm - not a mint product in sight.