Listerine

An antiseptic mouthwash made by the Warner-Lambert company (NYSE:WLA).

Named after the great surgeon who pioneered antisepsis in the operating theathre, Joseph Lister (1827-1912)

I won't go so far as to delineate the world along these lines, but it can't be argued. There are Listerine people, and there are Scope people. (And then there are people who don't worry so much about dental hygiene. Try not to kiss those people.) Some people enjoy Listerine - the original, amber-colored liquid - and some people prefer the various blue and green rinses in flavors like Cool Mint and Winterfresh (whatever that means).

They're all the same. They all fill your mouth with strong odors, disguising whatever natural smells might be in there. They all kill germs, supposedly. They all allow you to exude a comforting, clinical aroma that suggests cleanliness and vague toxicity.

Why do some of us prefer Listerine, then? Scope, as well as the blue and green flavors of Listerine, and most other mouthwashes, taste good. Sweet. Pleasant. Listerine? Listerine hurts. Listerine is a bottle of fresh-smelling amber-colored pain. Listerine takes commitment.

Maybe that's it. Listerine proves your commitment to fresh breath. Listerine allows you to demonstrate your imperviousness to pain. It shows the world that yeah, you are tough on germs! You give bacteria no quarter! Microbes tremble at your approach! Whereas Scope users just want fresh breath. They smell just as good afterwards, and both camps have conquered halitosis and gingivitis. But the Wintermint users of the world don't understand - Listerine cleans more than your mouth.

Listerine provides spiritual cleansing. Listerine allows us to feel pain, to suffer, and thereby to be made pure! No pain, no gain. Only through fire may we achieve rebirth and kill 99.9% of odor-causing bacteria. And Pfizer knows it. Watch the commercials and see the faces of the actors on the screen: they're suffering as well.

Listerine users are Calvinists. We know that life is pain, and that God has probably given up on us. Only through self-flagellation can we prove our worthiness - we worship one of the Old Gods who demand penance in exchange for the gifts we're given. Like the flagelants of the Middle Ages, we punish ourselves to atone for our own sins, and to beg God's forgiveness and grace. Instead of trying to end the Black Death through our own suffering, we beg God for salvation from tooth decay and bad breath.

And now, thanks to Cool Mint Listerine PocketPaks, I can take the pain that Listerine gives me anywhere. Spriritual cleansing in a little plastic container. God bless us all.

What's in it

Trace ingredients:

• Eucalyptol .091% Flavoring. It's an aromatic oil extracted from the koala's favorite food.
• Menthol .063% For that minty-fresh cough drop taste.
• Thymol .042% A disinfectant and the reason for the Do Not Swallow label. This is a highly toxic and irritating phenol compound which can be harmful or fatal if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. The oral LD-50 is around 980 mg/kg, so it probably won't kill a normal human, even if he's stupid enough to drink an entire bottle of Listerine.

Other ingredients:

• Benzoic acid and sodium benzoate. These are preservatives.
• Alcohol. Good old ethanol, a decent disinfectant and the most popular drug in the world.
• Poloxamer A surfactant. It's used to disperse the flavoring oils into the water base. It has no known harmful side effects.
• Methyl salicylate., also known as oil of wintergreen. This stuff is the "hot" part of Icy Hot, and it's highly toxic.
• Coloring. The reader may bloody well guess what this does.
• Dihydrogen monoxide.

So... yeah. It is a powerful antiseptic and you can use it to clean cuts in a pinch, as Dr. Lister did. You don't want to swallow some of the ingredients, especially thymol and methyl salicylate, but take comfort in the fact that drinking the stuff probably won't kill you. It can, however, make you violently sick.

A few sources:

http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/TH/thymol.html
http://www.who.int/pcs/cicad/summaries/cicad_26.htm#english
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/toms/ifs/poloxamer_335.asp
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002683.htm
A bottle of the stuff in my bathroom.

Constructive criticism is welcome, as always.