Mid Brain resurrects a feature from the early days of the Beauty Brains: Actual Ads!
Mouthwash – it’s not just for breakfast anymore…
You have to admire the scare tactic taken by this particular ad:
“Not until 
the last vestige of dandruff is gone, can you be considered a fastidious person, acceptable socially.”
Apparently, the threat of “non-fastidiousness” was sufficient to drive even the most callous dandruff sufferer to try virtually ANY product to rid them themselves of those unsightly flakes.
Helpful halitosis
One has to wonder if this advertising approach was dropped once the marketers of Listerine realized they could boost sales just as well by scaring people with the threat of bad breath.
Loading ...
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I thought Listerine made all sorts of false claims that it kills colds and kills bad breath and that it cured dandruff. The FTC slapped it with a ruling back in the 70’s to spend $10 million in corrective advertising. Then in ‘05 Pfizer brought a lawsuit and the judge ruled in Pfizer’s favor – W-L rigged clinical trials- and that Listerine was wrong in claiming that it was as effective as flossing… and that this made people believe that they didn’t need to floss if they used Warner-Lambert’s product.
I apologize for interrupting but the comments made by Left Brain about slavery on the last post of the Anti Animal Testing Group Agrees with the Beauty Brains are so egregious I feel the readers should be made aware of them.
Many of you are know that Beauty Brains recently tried to fit reality to their perception by unethically quoting Dr. Dan Lyons of Uncaged out of context when it was apparent had they included the complete article that he did not agree with them.(complete article is posted on the anti Animal Testing group agrees with Beauty brains comments). That was inexcusable enough, but the following response to one of my posts are so ignorant of basic history that they border on racism and reveal the caliber of the Beauty Brains “scientists.” Remember that these people refuse to reveal their identities as well as those of their corporate sponsors. This is what occurred:
Tristan states:
These laws are now in effect because a minority of people thought these issues were wrong. The abolitionists and suffragists were reviled in their day because “the majority of people” did not see these issues as immoral, including most scientists.
Left brain states:
You’re just making this up. I doubt there was ever a time in human history when the majority of people thought murder, pedophila, or racism were moral.
As far as slavery goes, the majority of people thought this was wrong too (if you count the slaves that were against it). The law was changed because a majority of people agreed it should be.
And what is your proof that “most scientists” thought slavery was ok? It sounds like you are just making that up.
And when a majority of the population start to see animal testing for cosmetics as morally reprehensible (which may or may not happen) laws will get change.
We are to believe that a college graduate wrote the historically inaccurate comments above. Since Left Brain “DOUBTS THERE WAS EVER A TIME WHEN THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE THOUGHT MURDER, PEDOPHILA, OR RACISM WERE MORAL”, the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves never happened, nor that they left out non Caucasians, women and children out of the Declaration of Independence. Nor that Thomas Jefferson indulged in pedophilia (because we don’t know when he started raping her) with the his teenage slave, Sally Heming . Since I am making this up and Left Brain “DOUBTS, THERE WAS EVER A TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY WHEN THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE THOUGHT MURDER, PEDOPHILA, OR RACISM WERE MORAL,” the government sanctioned rape and genocide of the Native Americans, the bounty hunting of the Tazmanians funded by the government, and church and government sanctioned inquisition never occurred. Neither did the pedophilia and pederasty of ancient Greece. Since LB claims that I am “jJUST MAKING THIS UP“, the American eugenics movement never occurred, with such luminaries as Edward Alsworth Ross, (1866-1961) a founder of sociology in the United states who created the term “race suicide.” Nor that it influenced Nazi race laws.
Since Left Brain believes that “AS FAR AS SLAVERY GOES, THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE THOUGHT THIS WAS WRONG TOO (IF YOU COUNT THE SLAVES THAT WERE AGAINST IT). THE LAW CHANGED BECAUSE A MAJORITY OF PEOPLE AGREED IT SHOULD BE.”
Although slaves were considered livestock, Left Brain apparently thinks that slaves voted themselves out of slavery. For Left Brain, “YOUR’RE JUST MAKING THIS UP.” neither the draft riots, nor the civil war ever occurred. Neither did Harriet Tubman’s courage, nor the courage of other abolitionists. Jim Crow laws never occurred and Martin Luther King among others never led the civil rights movement that allowed people of color the right to vote. Rosa Park’s braveness that initiated the bus boycott never happened. The boycott that prompted the right for people of color to sit wherever they wanted on the bus that allowed my mother to tell the red faced bus driver that my grandmother who was dark skinned would not move to the back of the bus. Because Left Brain thinks “ THE LAW CHANGED BECAUSE A MAJORITY OF PEOPLE AGREED IT SHOULD BE,” she negates the bravery of the Little Rock 9, the black high school students who had to be escorted by national guard to the first desegregated high School.
With this blithe statement “YOU’RE JUST MAKING THIS UP. I DOUBT THERE WAS EVER A TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY WHEN THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE THOUGHT MURDER, PEDOPHILA, OR RACISM WERE MORAL”
Left brain negates the horrors that my Native American, and African ancestors had to endure because slavery encompasses all of the above. They were considered livestock, their children taken away to be raped, runaway slaves were whipped, and mutilated with the consent of scientists and the church. Does Left Brain also think the Nazi Holocaust never happened ?Or that the Jewish people voted for the Nuremberg laws?
AND WHAT IS YOUR PROOF THAT “MOST SCIENTISTS” THOUGHT SLAVERY WAS OK? IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE JUST MAKING THAT UP
Here is my proof:
Jacksonian America and Polygenism, types of mankind, 1854, the bureau of ethnology, Franz Boas
Anthropology is the discipline that studies races, cultures, languages, and the evolution of the human species. It is broad in scope, incorporating the archeologist surveying Inca ruins, the cultural anthropologist collecting folklore in Appalachia, and the biological anthropologist mapping the gene sequences of lemurs. Yet the science of anthropology has long been steeped in debates, discussions, and controversies concerning race, racism, and the very meaning of human differences.
Anthropology has also been concerned with the so-called psychic unity of humankind, and with the fact that races and peoples the world over are essentially the same, both in terms of evolutionary biology and the acquisition and manipulation of culture. Tensions between investigating the universalism or particularism of the human condition, and between calibrating difference in relative terms or in terms of a hierarchy have been responsible for shaping much of this science that politicians, journalists, philanthropists, and even Supreme Court justices have routinely used in the rather messy and contradictory processes of race making in America. Perhaps more than any other social science, the development of anthropology has been instrumental in shaping racial constructs, while the development of racial constructs has also been instrumental in shaping anthropology.
Late eighteenth-century ethnology established the scientific foundation for the field, which began to mature during Andrew Jackson’s term as president of the United States (1829-1837). Jackson was responsible for implementing the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which resulted in the coerced and forced removal of an estimated 100,000 persons racially identified as American Indians. In addition, Jackson’s policies insured that the franchise was extended to all white men, irrespective of financial means while virtually all black men were denied the right to vote. He also suppressed abolitionists’ efforts to end slavery while vigorously defending that institution. Finally, Jackson was responsible for appointing Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was Taney who would decide, in Scott v. Sandford (1857), that Negroes were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race … and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” As a result of this decision, black people, whether free or enslaved, were denied citizenship in the United States.
It was in this context that the so-called American school of anthropology thrived as the champion of polygenism (the doctrine of multiple origins), sparking a debate between those who believed in the unity of humanity and those who argued for the plurality of origins and the antiquity of distinct types. Like the monogenists, the polygenists were not united in their views, and they often used words such as race, species, hybrid , and mongrel interchangeably. A scientific consensus began to emerge during this period that there was a genus Homo made up of several different primordial types of species. Charles Caldwell, Samuel George Morton, Samuel A. Cartwright, George Gliddon, Josiah C. Nott, Louis Agassiz, and even South Carolina Governor James Henry Hammond were all influential proponents of polygenetic origins. While some were apparently disinterested scientists, others were passionate advocates who used science to promote slavery in a period of increasing sectional strife. All were complicit in establishing the putative science that justified slavery, informed the Dred Scott decision, underpinned miscegenation laws, and eventually fueled the establishment of Jim Crow laws. Samuel G. Morton, for example, claimed to be just a scientist, but he did not hesitate to provide evidence of Negro “inferiority” to John C. Calhoun, the prominent proslavery secretary of state, to help him negotiate the annexation of Texas as a slave state.
Yes. Well. So, about listerine…not necessarily in the quantities used in their formula, but some of the ingredients do have antifungal qualities and I have had success spritzing my son’s feet with it to cure his athlete’s foot. Listerine and vinegar both. While not as fast as lotrimin or other OTC products, it does work on mild to moderate cases. As for dandruff, a listerine rinse would smell better than a vinegar one, which I read yesterday is supposed to be a good thing for correcting ph on a scalp.
@Tristan – Thank you taking the time to visit our blog and provide your comments. We share your vision of someday living in a world where animals are no longer used for testing.
“You’re just making this up. I doubt there was ever a time in human history when the majority of people thought murder, pedophila, or racism were moral.”- Left Brain
Lauri- “Yes. Well. So, about listerine…”
Lauri and Left Brain it is nice to know that white AmeriKKKA is still in full force.
I am appalled that Left Brain accused Tristan of making up HIStorical fact and of Lauri’s dismissiveness.
How do both of you feel being ammended into the Declaration of Independence? Do you realize that sisters of color took even longer to be part of the ammendments because our white “sisters” delegated the black sisters to the back of lines so as to not offend the white southern women.
Left Brain, I DEARLY suggest before you write that Tristan made up this HIStory you should question the lies in your own belief system. You should question authority, especially your own. I do this daily so I do not forget the struggle that both my ancestors and I have gone through.
Left Brain and Lauri must have gotten stuck in AmeriKKKan HIStory classes that dedicated only one paragraph to slavery.
Who knows? Left Brain, if you go back far enough you may find a lynched ancestor hanging from your “family” tree then perhaps you would see that Tristan did not make these things up.
I believe you owe Tristan and all people of color a BIG APOLOGY. I am shocked that no one else is disturbed with these blatantly racist comments.
@diablita – Thanks for your comments. You might have a different opinion if you read the original exchange. But perhaps not. Something has been lost in translation from my brain through this keyboard to your brain.
I’m in complete agreement with you that racism is appalling.
Actually, yes–as I heard it in an American studies course, Listerine made a mint when the company pulled halitosis out of an old medical manual and reinvented it as a modern disease that could keep people from dating, getting jobs, etc. The same tactic worked when introducing deodorant and similar products–and still works today, although marketers were a lot less subtle about it back then.