18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, September 12, 1913: I’ve forgotten for today.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share a hundred-year-old ad for Colgate’s Ribbon Dental Cream that was in the March, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.
Care of the teeth twice-a-day and every day is a good habit easily formed with Colgate’s.
COLGATE’S RIBBON DENTAL CREAM
DELICIOUS
ANTISEPTIC
ECONOMICAL
COMES OUT A RIBBON
LIES FLAT ON THE BRUSH
CANNOT ROLL OFF THE BRUSH
Its flavor is delicious—making its use a treat and insuring regularity.
Its antiseptic action is thorough—checking the germs which cause decay.
Its cleansing is safe—removing deposits and leaving the mouth non-acid without over-medication.
Every member of your household—man, woman and child—should have an individual tube.
Single tubes and boxes of half dozen at our dealer’s—or send us 2 cents for a trial tube and our booklet “Oral Hygiene.”
COLGATE & CO.
Dept. H
199 Fulton St., New York
Maker of Cashmere Bouquet Soap—luxurious, lasting, refined.
According to the Colgate website:
Colgate introduced its toothpaste in a tube similar to modern-day toothpaste tubes in the 1890s.
Until after 1945, toothpastes contained soap. After that time, soap was replaced by other ingredients to make the paste into a smooth paste or emulsion—such as sodium lauryl sulphate, a common ingredient in present-day toothpaste.
A Hundred Years Ago 
So one really could wash one’s mouth out with soap, thanks to Colgate!
The quote really makes me wonder about how much soap was once in toothpaste–and how they masked (or maybe they didn’t mask) the taste of it.
Fascinating! And now I know I can use soap if I forget to pack the toothpaste. Yuk. 🙂
If I forgot toothpaste, I’d head to the nearest convenience store to buy some. 🙂
I miss those old screw caps that used to be on toothpaste tubes.
Those old metal toothpaste tubes were also fun. The tube would stay rolled when I attempted to get the last bits of toothpaste out.
Individual tubes for family members? Wow, that is something new to me.
That also seemed strange to me. It made me wonder if people worried about different things that might spread germs back then than what we worry about today.
Just an appeal to try to get more sales and maybe play on the ignorance of the public?
Marketing is fascinating. My question is, did they determine beforehand that “rolling off the toothbrush” was a problem people wanted handled by their next tube [oops – ribbon] of toothpaste? Or did they throw that in there hoping to sensationalize a problem people didn’t even realize they had? Gotta love it.
I love it, too. Your question about which came first is kind of a “chicken or an egg” question. :).
I didn’t think toothbrushes were widely used until WWII era.
When I was researching this post, I read something about soldiers being required to brush their teeth–and that they continued to do it when they came home (and they encouraged their family members to brush).
I had my mouth washed out with soap a few times as a kid and didn’t like it one bit. Thanks for the bit of history and knowledge on Colgate!
It doesn’t sound like much fun. 🙂
Ha ha, it wasn’t at all fun! Just a few times and I learned my lesson. 😉
I think modern toothpaste should come out in a ribbon. That’s a nice touch.
You’d think someone would “invent” a new toothpaste that comes out as a ribbon as a marketing ploy to differentiate it from other toothpastes. 🙂
i’m still using colgate, haha
I have a tube in my bathroom, too. 🙂
great teeth!