Weird Facts about Colgate® Toothpaste

• The Egyptians used toothpaste as early as 2000 B.C. made from powdered pumice stone and war.
• The Romans used toothpaste made from human urine, which Roman physicians insisted whitened teeth. (Oddly, the ammonia in urine does working as the whitener.)
• In 1806, twenty-three-year-old William Colgate opened a “Soap, Mould & Dipt Candles” factory in a rented two-story brick building at #6 Dutch Street in downtown Manhattan.
• The business prospered, and Samuel and his brother James made generous donations to Madison University in Hamilton, New York—so much so that the University renamed itself Colgate University in 1890.
• In 1873, the Colgate Company, run by Colgate's son, Samuel Colgate, introduced antispeptic dental powder sold in jars.
• The Colgate Company named the white toothpaste after the company's founder, William Colgate.
• In 1896, the Colgate Company introduced Colgate Dental Cream, the first toothpaste packaged in a collapsible tube.
• In 1968, Colgate toothpaste was reformulated with MFP fluoride (monofluorophosphate), termed the best possible protection against tooth decay.
• Poison toothpaste is used by the CIA as a weapon for assassinations, according to Larry Devlin, a CIA agent who was instructed to kill ousted Belgian Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. “I received instructions to see that Lumumba was removed from the world,” Devlin told Time magazine in 1993. “I received poison toothpaste, among other devices, but never used them.”
• When wilderness camping, anything that smells like food can attract bears, including toothpaste. Food, soap, and toothpaste should be stored in a waterproof sack hung strung over a 20-foot-high rope between two trees.
• According to The First Really Important Survey of American Habits by Mel Poretz and Barry Sinrod, 72 percent of Americans squeeze the toothpaste tube from the top.
• Colgate is the best-selling toothpaste worldwide.