Tropicana created orange-flavoured toothpaste – and it could be yours for free

Is there a dentist in the house? I have a semi-serious question. Sometimes kids use strawberry-flavoured toothpaste - I guess the idea is to encourage them to brush their teeth more often - but when you grow up, fruit-flavoured toothpaste is sort of frowned up. The question is: does it make a difference? Is taste relevant?

I recently became obsessed with Marvis, an old-school Italian brand that produces toothpaste in stylish boxes, and now I’ve found another toothpaste I may like, produced by Tropicana. Yup, the same company that gives you orange juice.

It turns out, toothpaste is a relatively recent invention. Colgate first released tubed toothpaste in the late 1800s but the toothpaste as we know it (as in, with xylitol, sodium fluoride, etc.) has only been around for 70-odd years.

This brings me on to Tropicana, because they’ve just answered a question people were asking: why does orange juice taste terrible after brushing your teeth?

It’s because of an ingredient with the same name as my favourite modern Mercedes: the SLS. It stands for Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, a cleaning agent and surfactant that interferes with the natural taste of orange.

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Tropicana said they’ve, “worked closely with research and development partner Dynamic Blending Specialists to bring this toothpaste to life. Tropicana Toothpaste is different from other toothpaste because it was specifically designed to protect the delicious taste of orange juice”. Basically: it does not include SLS.

The new limited-edition toothpaste launches on November 1 - National Brush Day - but you can’t actually buy it, because Tropicana will gift it to you. The company said: "consumers are encouraged to comment on Tropicana's Instagram page and may just receive a fresh surprise."

I’ll give it a shot. Is it going to be good enough to replace my Marvis?