(Image: Classic 80’s Colgate Commercial)

Did you know that you probably use too much toothpaste every day? The average adult uses 3-5x as much (or more) toothpaste daily than what is required to completely clean their teeth with. This is because it is how we are shown our whole lives growing up, in both TV commercials and image ads (or even the box of toothpaste).

Go ahead and look back at the earliest years you can remember, and consider every picture or video containing toothpaste you have ever seen. Chances are, it displayed a toothbrush being completely covered in toothpaste. That has an effect on our brains, because what do we do when we go to brush our teeth? We completely cover it with toothpaste without even thinking about it.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, nor is this blog patterned to touch on such a topic in general. However, it kind of makes you think. Dentists point out that the average adult only requires a dab of toothpaste, typically the size of a pea to effectively clean your whole mouth (teeth). Anything beyond that is excessive and complete overuse of the product.

So why do commercials and ads depict the use of toothpaste in such a way? You could say that it is a subliminal message to get people to use as much as possible, so that they would burn through toothpaste much quicker and spend more money than they actually need to. Sure, although now we sound like a theorist as mentioned. Or, maybe they do it simply because it captures the product so much better on camera. Think about it, a small dab on a toothbrush wouldn’t look as cool as this long shiny run of toothpaste that fills the frame or acts as a focus point for your eyes. However you look at it, the ads are quite misleading, and because of this, the average adult slaughters that tube of paste with every use.

Now that you know, you can spend a little less on how much toothpaste you go through, and put that savings toward something useful.

Now check out some commercials and you shall see what I mean: