Nothing is more embarrassing than that bit of lettuce stuck between your teeth after lunch or the stench of garlic lingering on your breath as you whisper to your friends. Toothpicks and gum can only get you so far. Before you kiss that special someone for the first time, you might consider breaking out the big guns: mouthwash. The bright blue liquid entices you with promises of clean teeth…but if you asked someone in the 19th century, they’d recoil at the thought of swishing around floor cleaner in their mouth. That then begs the question: How did we end up worshiping floor cleaner as our savior from bad breath? It’s all about perspective.

Mouthwash first got its footing in the mid-1800s. At the time, healthcare wasn’t the advanced, dependable practice we know it to be now. Instead, it was disgustingly unhygienic, which led to avoidable deaths en masse. However, surgeons began to notice that cleaning their hands in between surgeries and using new tools drastically decreased the mortality rate. One surgeon in particular, Dr. Joseph Lister, began to wash his instruments in carbolic acid. Upon the adoption of antiseptics such as carbolic acid in regular procedure, survival rates practically skyrocketed, as germs and disease weren't being carried from patient to patient. 

As using antiseptics became common practice, a chemist named Dr. Joseph Lawrence realized the opportunity at hand. In 1879, he created his own recipe with an alcohol base as a consumer version of antiseptic, and it would go on to become incredibly popular in the professional medical world, thanks to its astounding effectiveness. Thus was the birth of Listerine–named in honor of its “founder” Dr. Lister. 

However, the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company–the owners of Listerine–found their own uses of the antiseptic. Not only could it be used for cleaning wounds, but also for toothaches, gonorrhea, and, bizarrely, to clean your floors. It became something of an umbrella product due to its diverse range of “applications.” 

Mouthwash didn’t come to fruition as the product we know and love today until the 1920s. Gerald Lambert, president of the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company, realized he could capitalize on people’s insecurities. He dug through an old medical journal and discovered the Latin word “halitosis,” which he then recycled to mean a chronic condition of bad breath. With halitosis as his sword, Lambert would take on the beast that is American Consumerism. Spoiler alert: He won.

This success was due to a vicious ad campaign focused on Edna, a dashing debutante cursed with halitosis. Thanks to her horrendous breath, she was driven to the margins of society despite her good nature. Obviously, bad breath isn’t seen as that bad today. But, the people of the Roaring 20s begged to differ. With a culture focused on appearances and social strata, Lambert played on just the right fears to get the people practically climbing over each other to get their fix of mouthwash. Between 1921 and 1927, accounting for inflation, their annual sales went from $1.3 million to $57.5 million. Thanks to some clever marketing and fear tactics, mouthwash became a staple in everyone’s daily oral hygiene routine. 

Obviously, just because halitosis isn’t technically real doesn’t mean you should stop using mouthwash. Bacteria in your mouth generates stinky breath–alongside plaque and other tooth diseases–and mouthwash is what flushes those pesky denizens out. And besides, who doesn’t like the feeling of a minty fresh breath? So, next time you rinse your mouth out, you can thank Edna for her sacrifices to make mouthwash a common healthy habit.

Information retrieved from Global Health Now and Dental Depot Arizona.