Open Wide and Smile!

Washington Post: Manufacturers are out to invent a better mouth trap, and shelves are overflowing with the results. The flood of new pastes, gels, sprays, strips, brushes, flosses, washes, pills and picks, each guaranteed to whiten, brighten, sweeten or protect, has become a deluge.
To walk down the toothpaste aisle at the drugstore today is to behold a marketing executive’s dreams.
Take toothpaste. In a simpler time, Americans made do with a handful of products, choosing from among Colgate’s invisible shield, wonder-where-the-yellow-went Pepsodent and a few competitors – when they weren’t using tooth powder or plain baking soda and water. Then came fluoride and flavors and exotic gels and the occasional speckled paste. In 1999 alone, companies added 49 new toothpastes.
So far this year, the number of new toothpastes – meaning new brands, flavors, functions or packaging – is a jaw-dropping 96. And that’s just a microcosm of what’s happening in the entire oral care category, a $4.8 billion gold mine in 2003, according to market research firm Euromonitor International of Chicago.
“They realized people are willing to fork over $40 on a regular basis for products like these,” said Tom Vierhile, executive editor of the new-products database Productscan Online. “I don’t think anyone knew this was possible before – they were used to selling tubes of stuff for $2, $3, $4. It was right under their noses.”
Open wider: Explosion in oral-care gadgetry [Buffalo News]