Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Now, a quick bit of housekeeping. You may
Speaker 1: notice that we had a little classic coming in the
Speaker 1: place of morning routines Part one and part two, right,
Speaker 1: and that's just everything's fine. That's just a little scheduling.
Speaker 1: We'd like to kick off our summer break our What
Speaker 1: is taking a Thursday a summer break for us? I
Speaker 1: think it is technically. Let's intro our super producer, mister
Speaker 1: Max Williams. That's mister Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen.
Speaker 1: Previously on Ridiculous History. In Port one, we started talking
Speaker 1: about just the concept of cleaning yourself up right, look
Speaker 1: at you, humanity, wash yourself.
Speaker 2: Washing your ass. It's important. We did devote a lot
Speaker 2: of that episode to some stuff we discussed in the
Speaker 2: past in terms of the history of soap and the
Speaker 2: impact of soap on that whole idea cannot be understated. Today,
Speaker 2: we felt like this was beefy enough in and of
Speaker 2: itself for a whole episode. We are moving into oral hygiene. Technically,
Speaker 2: it's also supposed to be a midday routine and evening routine.
Speaker 2: But most importantly, I would argue, and I think nine
Speaker 2: out of ten Dennis might as well eight out of ten. Whatever,
Speaker 2: morning very important, get a good start brush them teeth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have to choose one, right, is the
Speaker 1: one you should choose. But it's also it's interesting because
Speaker 1: it's like the question of how often you should change
Speaker 1: the oil on your car. Technically every time you drive it.
Speaker 1: Oh good, po okay, all right, that's how race cars.
Speaker 1: That is true.
Speaker 2: Hence the pit crew and I will walk back a
Speaker 2: little bit of what I said. We do also know
Speaker 2: that evening brushing of the teeth may well actually be
Speaker 2: more important than morning because a lot happens while your
Speaker 2: mouth is closed and you're sleeping, and all the bacteria
Speaker 2: that can kind of build up, and if you eat
Speaker 2: before bed and then you don't brush your teeth, god forbid,
Speaker 2: it be something with sugar that can really be a
Speaker 2: problem in that over night time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, not to high road to anybody, but I
Speaker 1: love brushing my teeth.
Speaker 2: I like to do it.
Speaker 1: At a few years ago, I started saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we're working from home during COVID.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Man, anytime I happened by the bathroom, I got a
Speaker 1: couple minutes.
Speaker 2: Why not, I've been doing it to have been a
Speaker 2: multitasker toothbrusher. I got one of those like Wi Fi
Speaker 2: connected the tooth brushes that monitors your brushing habits. Probably
Speaker 2: feeds that data directly to talenteer. But whatever, it's fun.
Speaker 2: It's a fun little gimmick and it really does make
Speaker 2: me the gamification of oral hygiene really does. It's a motivator.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. If I could jump in here real quick.
Speaker 3: I actually on this point about last year, I my
Speaker 3: dentist told me I was overbrushing.
Speaker 2: Oh dear. It was like I had only heard of
Speaker 2: that from parks and red over brushes. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: that's a real thing. Like, yeah, maybe maybe pair back
Speaker 2: to brushing and introduce some more flossing, because that's certainly
Speaker 2: something that I need to do. But I can't imagine
Speaker 2: that you're not a megafloster.
Speaker 3: I'm a megafloster. I have a water pick. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 3: future max right here. I just want to jump in
Speaker 3: and clarify something I said right there. I want to
Speaker 3: make sure that everyone knows I'm not saying you use
Speaker 3: a water pic or floth, but you should use They
Speaker 3: say you should use a water pick and floths. That
Speaker 3: much of a flossing nerd that I thought it was
Speaker 3: essential for me to add this line in here. Well, obviously, yes, that.
Speaker 2: Seeking in the phone and peacefull in knowledge.
Speaker 3: It's just for you.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 3: I've met a couple of the people who are megaflosters,
Speaker 3: and we're all beautiful, wonderful nerds.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's good to have a habit that does
Speaker 1: not become like a routine, is beneficial to a certain
Speaker 1: threshold before and you can you can overdo anything, uh
Speaker 1: like I have. I've candidly gotten a little bit too
Speaker 1: into water again, and you can drink too.
Speaker 2: Much water swimming Now, I got you consuming water. So
Speaker 2: while theories about the causes of tooth decay have pervaded
Speaker 2: over the centuries, much like those miasma theories we talked
Speaker 2: about the idea of the stench purveying some sort of
Speaker 2: airborne you know, sickness, We've got a lot of those
Speaker 2: kind of misplaced theories about things like toothworms in ancient times,
Speaker 2: which we've probably updated to something that's not far off
Speaker 2: from toothworms, which would be plaque and the bacteria that
Speaker 2: is bred on your teeth if you don't brush those chompers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, plaque is a playground for bacteria and that can
Speaker 1: lead to decay. Also, statistically speaking, given the billions of
Speaker 1: people who have lived and died over the course of
Speaker 1: human history, there probably were a few people with something
Speaker 1: like a toothworm.
Speaker 2: Like a toothworm, but it's not normal and name your toothworm.
Speaker 1: Right right before the modern toothbrushes, water picks and all
Speaker 1: the do dads were talking about recently, people still knew
Speaker 1: that oral hygiene was important because you're the first person
Speaker 1: who smells your own breath, right, So they use cheesesticks
Speaker 1: and thin twigs that they would gnaw on until one
Speaker 1: end freyed off into you know, fibrous matter, and that
Speaker 1: would be a way too, a way to attempt to
Speaker 1: clean your teeth in your mouth. And depending on where
Speaker 1: you travel in the world, you may see some people
Speaker 1: using things like chew sticks in the modern day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well sure, I mean, even like said, flavored toothpicks
Speaker 2: are very popular today. You can find these ones that
Speaker 2: are like confused with eucalyptus or mint rather yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: not eucalyptus, but mint. And they are really tasty and
Speaker 2: in a good way to kind of, you know, do
Speaker 2: a little tooth maintenance throughout the day.
Speaker 1: They can sometimes feel like a little bit of an
Speaker 1: appetite suppressor, also true, or just a little little fidget
Speaker 1: or if.
Speaker 2: You're trying to quit smoking, for example, I know that's
Speaker 2: very very very helpful for that. The toothbrush as we
Speaker 2: more or less know it today does seem to have
Speaker 2: been invented in China sometimes during the Tang dynasty, and
Speaker 2: they also invented Tang As it turned that's not true
Speaker 2: from six eighteen to nine oh seven a d in.
Speaker 2: The earliest models were made of bamboo or pieces of
Speaker 2: bone for the handle, and bristles made from boars hairs,
Speaker 2: much like paintbrushes. Would have been.
Speaker 1: Right, right, and that sounds super fancy Today when so
Speaker 1: many toothbrushes are entirely plastic affairs, you can still find
Speaker 1: boar's hair toothbrushes that they're often promoted these days as
Speaker 1: an environmentally friendly alternative, you know, to the microplastic laden
Speaker 1: toothbrushes that most people use. For sure, get rid of
Speaker 1: that plaque and replace it with microplastic.
Speaker 2: William Addis and an Englishman of note, gets credit for
Speaker 2: kind of scaling and mass producing toothbrushes thousands of years later.
Speaker 2: Years later. Of course, as is usually the case, he supposedly,
Speaker 2: according to toothbrush lore, created a prototype around seventeen eighteen
Speaker 2: while in prison because of being a bit of a
Speaker 2: rabble rouser, a bit of a rioter. In eighteen fifty seven, H. N. Wadsworth,
Speaker 2: who is a dentist from Washington, DC, got the very
Speaker 2: first patent in the United States for a toothbrush, which
Speaker 2: he claimed was much better at scrubbing in between the
Speaker 2: teeth than previous models.
Speaker 1: And then we see in nineteen thirty eight the rise
Speaker 1: of nylon bristles. We see the electric toothbrush all the
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen thirty seven, courtesy of the American
Speaker 1: inventor Tomlinson I. Moseley. He patented a design, but it
Speaker 1: didn't really This happens all the time right with patents.
Speaker 1: It didn't really catch on until someone else comes in
Speaker 1: with maybe a more functional or somehow more friendly user
Speaker 1: friendly model. So his is nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 2: Kind of reckon that an early electric toothbrush might have
Speaker 2: been a little bit of a terrify buying properties. It's
Speaker 2: got a pull cord, uh huh, and it's gas power.
Speaker 2: It's gas powered, so you have a you have.
Speaker 1: A canister that you put on your back and that's
Speaker 1: where you rip the cord. It's basically a lawnmower for
Speaker 1: your mouth.
Speaker 2: There's a tube. I'm so into this.
Speaker 1: This is like Sussian and yeah, anyway, the thing about
Speaker 1: this is we're talking about toothbrushes, and it may be
Speaker 1: surprising to learn how old some of these innovations are.
Speaker 1: But what was really mind blowing on my end was
Speaker 1: to learn that toothpaste came before the toothbrush. They sued
Speaker 1: out the gunk first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean you know that sometimes people would
Speaker 2: maybe just like apply it to their teeth, you know,
Speaker 2: in the earliest days. Of course, the ancient Egyptians were
Speaker 2: pretty quick to the party on a lot of this
Speaker 2: kind of beauty stuff. Around three thousand to five thousand BCE,
Speaker 2: they developed a dental cream with powdered ashes from the
Speaker 2: hooves of oxen. It also contained mr which is I
Speaker 2: think kind of like an incense. It's like a aromatic material.
Speaker 2: And well, maybe well that's frank incense. Maybe I'm confusing
Speaker 2: my three wise men gifts eggshells as well, and pummis,
Speaker 2: which does make sense because the toothpaste that they use
Speaker 2: of the dentist does have these kind of particulate things
Speaker 2: in it, the kind of grit that sort of helps,
Speaker 2: you know, get the gunk off, and some toothpaste that
Speaker 2: you can buy for home use has that as well.
Speaker 2: So they really were pretty innovative in terms of like
Speaker 2: the overall makeup of what kind of materials should be used,
Speaker 2: something that like the ashes we know was a precursor
Speaker 2: to soap. The hooves and the murrher perhaps were a
Speaker 2: bit of a stabilizing agents or something to kind of
Speaker 2: tie the room together, and the murdher perhaps also an
Speaker 2: aromatic kind of situation a flavor. And then the eggshells
Speaker 2: and the pumas would be the grit that would you know,
Speaker 2: hopefully help you know, get some of the gook off
Speaker 2: of You'd have to be careful with thought though, really
Speaker 2: what you could damage the enamelog Yeah, such a needle
Speaker 2: to thread with the abrision.
Speaker 1: We also see not too too far away, people in
Speaker 1: ancient Persia around one thousand BCE were doing similar things.
Speaker 1: They made a mixture with gypsum, herbs and honey. So good,
Speaker 1: so far, and then the shop on twist. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: shells of snails and oysters. Shells of snails and oysters.
Speaker 1: I guess they'd smash them up and then again it
Speaker 1: would be that kind of particulate matter. Yeah, probably like
Speaker 1: a mortar pestle situation.
Speaker 2: Totally, but it would it would kind of serve similar
Speaker 2: purpose to those eggshells and pumus that the ancient Egyptians
Speaker 2: were parallel thinking about. People would continue to kind of
Speaker 2: make their own unique recipes for toothpastes and powders throughout history.
Speaker 2: In eighteen sixty, book titled The Practical Housewife recommended mixtures
Speaker 2: of powdered ris root, charcoal, Peruvian bark, something called prepared chalk,
Speaker 2: which sounds interesting, and oil of bergamot or lavender. Now
Speaker 2: we are starting to get into the more like spearmint
Speaker 2: kind of flavoring, you know, of modern toothpaste. We were
Speaker 2: already starting to get that sort of vibe with the
Speaker 2: lavender and bergamont. A Connecticut dentist, a guy named Boy
Speaker 2: of boy these names, Washington Wentworth Sheffield. He gets credit
Speaker 2: for the idea of packing toothpaste into a tube, and
Speaker 2: the rest is history. We can stop here the tube.
Speaker 2: You gotta squeeze it from the end. By the way,
Speaker 2: he's ad from the middle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the ADA is cutting into the show right now.
Speaker 1: That's the American Dental Association. And I want to bring
Speaker 1: up we used one of my favorite US idiomatic phrases.
Speaker 1: Nine out of ten dentists. I have this deep mythos
Speaker 1: to my head about the renegade tenth dentist. I want
Speaker 1: to write a guy story. Yeah, he's the he's the
Speaker 1: guy who beat me your backs. He's the guy on
Speaker 1: every survey who says no toothpaste, Yeah, eat.
Speaker 2: Sugar before bed. He's a real maverick. He'shannon. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: an anti hero.
Speaker 1: But before this tube innovation, which was actually pretty huge,
Speaker 1: a lot of people made toothpaste at home to save money.
Speaker 1: And when they bought it in say the old general
Speaker 1: store prior to the eighteen eighties, they were getting little pots,
Speaker 1: like little almost like you would see a glass jar
Speaker 1: of yogurt at the store, or paper boxes.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And I maybe imagine that different stores
Speaker 2: and early pharmacies in the way that. You know, early
Speaker 2: pharmacies would actually mix up the medicine on site. You know,
Speaker 2: That's why I like the mortar and pestle is sort
Speaker 2: of a symbol of that that some of these would
Speaker 2: be sort of house versions, right, Yeah, like these, these
Speaker 2: these tooth creams.
Speaker 1: And we have an embarrassing, yet overall positive story to
Speaker 1: tell you about American history. Everything we described in the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, when we look at the US, it only
Speaker 1: applied to a pretty small demographic of Americans. Most people
Speaker 1: did not brush their teeth until a brilliant American businessman
Speaker 1: named Claude C. Hopkins starts talking to an old buddy
Speaker 1: of his, and his buddy had created a minty, frothy
Speaker 1: toothpaste that didn't taste bad, no burnt snail shells. He
Speaker 1: called it pepsident. And Hopkins is a marketing guy, right,
Speaker 1: He's not the guy who invents pepsident. He's the guy
Speaker 1: who normalizes brushing your teeth. So he launches on these
Speaker 1: Brens esque advertising campaigns, and they see results in more
Speaker 1: and more polls. The average American is saying, yeah, I
Speaker 1: brush my teeth. It's kind of like popularizing bathing. Back
Speaker 1: in the day.
Speaker 2: It really is, And it's so interesting to think of
Speaker 2: a time where like the humble toothbrush and toothpaste were
Speaker 2: like almost a novelty. He started to have like influencer
Speaker 2: type screaming about their pepsident smiles. And can I just
Speaker 2: say too, Ben that I love early marketing and early
Speaker 2: kind of product placement type stuff with like the Craft's
Speaker 2: radio theater or whatever. That's exactly right be the Colgate Hour.
Speaker 2: But the term pep was so popular. I love pep.
Speaker 2: I mean, has nothing to do with what we're talking
Speaker 2: about here, but the idea that this would maybe give
Speaker 2: you pep. I wouldn't be surprised if that was part
Speaker 2: of the marketing, Oh.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent right, give you that famous pepsiden smile.
Speaker 1: And pepsident is this brilliant bit of language because it
Speaker 1: implies something, but it does not promise anything. Right, So
Speaker 1: Hopkins is figuring out a little bit of background on
Speaker 1: the smart He's figuring out how to promote pepsidens normalize
Speaker 1: brushing one's teeth, And he says, Okay, I'm not a dentist,
Speaker 1: but I've got to find a way to make the
Speaker 1: case to the American people. So I can make a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and it is autobiography. He would later
Speaker 1: write about how he sat down with a pile of
Speaker 1: dental textbooks, the textbooks that kids have to study to
Speaker 1: become dentists, and in the middle of one book, he says,
Speaker 1: I found a reference to the musin plaques on teeth,
Speaker 1: which I afterwards called the film. And this gave me
Speaker 1: an appealing idea. I said, I'll advertise toothpaste as a
Speaker 1: creator of beauty. And that's what they're That's what he
Speaker 1: starts arguing for. It's not health necessarily, it's vanity. Why
Speaker 1: don't why don't you give yourself a bright, shiny smile
Speaker 1: like the Shirley Temples and the Clark Gables and all
Speaker 1: the other folks on the big screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, run your tongue across your teeth and feel that
Speaker 2: icky film. That is the stuff that makes your teeth
Speaker 2: look a little bit off color. And he said in
Speaker 2: the marketing campaign invites decay. This is back in the
Speaker 2: day where you didn't necessarily need a ton of scientific
Speaker 2: backing to make claims like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nine out of ten dentists recommend camel cigarettes.
Speaker 2: They did. That's not a joke. I know, I know,
Speaker 2: it's a thing. Some even would argue or make the
Speaker 2: claim that cigarettes, certain brands of cigarettes were good for you,
Speaker 2: were good for your teeth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ever, relaxing for you know whatever, sound scientific but
Speaker 1: is not scientific. Relaxing for the constitution, freshening of the lungs,
Speaker 1: which is near were.
Speaker 2: Enough the opposite of what cigarettes do.
Speaker 1: But this is another mind blower. All of these things
Speaker 1: that we just described, again, in the history of toothpaste,
Speaker 1: they did not have fluoride. That didn't come along until
Speaker 1: after World War Two in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen fifty five we see Test launching their
Speaker 2: product line with the first toothpaste containing fluoride, which did
Speaker 2: have some scientific backing, which in and of itself, because
Speaker 2: of the lack of it, was like a huge marketing point.
Speaker 2: I would say research had shown that this material was
Speaker 2: the substance, was in fact effective in reducing cavities. And
Speaker 2: of course we know Norman Rockwell, painter of Americana, literal
Speaker 2: inventor of the visual reference to the American Dream, did
Speaker 2: illustrate those early crest ads featuring young people keep boys
Speaker 2: and girls, families hanging out, having a good time living
Speaker 2: that American dream and parroting the tagline, look, mom, no cavities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect stuff, right, and an amazing painter my opinion,
Speaker 1: I just enjoyed, agreed the way he paints a story.
Speaker 2: You could argue it's propaganda, though much is Oh, I'm
Speaker 2: not arguing that is just a fact.
Speaker 1: But we do know that floridation has been considered controversial
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the world and at points in time,
Speaker 1: but the overall science teaches us that fluoride in toothpaste
Speaker 1: is a good thing. You know, and you can trace
Speaker 1: rates of tooth decay in places or in populations that
Speaker 1: don't have floridated toothpaste.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and many municipalities around the country and around the
Speaker 2: world do still floridate there drinking water supply. And another
Speaker 2: thing that's under fire is that practice, with Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy having some real hot takes on floridation and perhaps
Speaker 2: I think some pretty lacking scientifically claims about other knock
Speaker 2: on effects if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't want to be too too political. I
Speaker 1: think that is a quintessential example of how off people
Speaker 1: can be when they never admit that they're wrong. And
Speaker 1: no one has ever called them on the progressively crazier things.
Speaker 2: They say, yeah, for sure. I mean I just say,
Speaker 2: you know, we know that floride has been controversial for
Speaker 2: a long time. This isn't like a new thing. So
Speaker 2: I guess that gets us a modern day. So why
Speaker 2: don't we move on to another facet fixture of the
Speaker 2: morning ritual, the humble deodorant stick yor perhaps deodorant spray.
Speaker 2: And when you start looking into that, you start looking
Speaker 2: further back and realizing that things like perfume are the
Speaker 2: predecessor of like a chemical agent that actually reduces sweat.
Speaker 2: Initially everything was about masking the stink.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Like I was saying in part one, the
Speaker 1: first thing you would notice as a time traveler, depending
Speaker 1: on how far back you went, is that the past
Speaker 1: is stinky.
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, it's come up many times in the
Speaker 2: show and others.
Speaker 1: Essential oils are one of the earliest forms of masking
Speaker 1: an odor, right, And from there we get perfume. Or
Speaker 1: you were out in the woods and you smell a
Speaker 1: beautiful flower and you wonder, how could I smell like
Speaker 1: that instead of like bo?
Speaker 2: But instead you smell sort of like that mixed with bo.
Speaker 1: Right, Like how hospitals have a lemon scented sanitizer, but
Speaker 1: you smell what's under there.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Due in more recent history, we started to see that
Speaker 1: people would take absorbent fabric and kind of sponge under
Speaker 1: their arms so that it didn't soak through their clothes.
Speaker 1: And then we see talcum powder, then the discovery or
Speaker 1: creation of baking soda. These were all precursors to modern
Speaker 1: day deodorant, and some deodorants still have baking soda or
Speaker 1: talcum powder or others sent agents to mask a smell.
Speaker 2: But not mistaken. Arm and Hammer has their own line
Speaker 2: of toothpaste.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, as well, Look they took the baking soda
Speaker 1: train and figured out how to put it into everything totally. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then to be fair, making soda is a
Speaker 2: great odor absorber, Like if you put it like an
Speaker 2: open thing of baking soda in your fridge, it helps
Speaker 2: cut down on weird fridge smells. It's a pretty interesting
Speaker 2: substance that is pretty you know, useful in a lot
Speaker 2: of different ways. The earliest forms of deodorant we start
Speaker 2: to see emerging around two thousand BC in Mesopotamia, which
Speaker 2: it would be modern day Iraq, where people started to
Speaker 2: use aromatic remedies that included natural ingredients like oils and
Speaker 2: resins in order to of course mask that smell of
Speaker 2: body odor. They were often applied during a morning bathing routine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The ancient Egyptians also were again first to the
Speaker 1: game in a lot of ways here, possibly because they
Speaker 1: were just such an ancient society, so they were the
Speaker 1: first to the post outside of Mesopotamia. They used a
Speaker 1: blend of natural ingredients, scented oils, incense, all to you know,
Speaker 1: mask the smell of living in a punishing desert climate.
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was always historically renowned as a beautiful public figure,
Speaker 1: and part of her beauty was her hygiene. She used
Speaker 1: her own perfumed claims for these purposes, oils and sense.
Speaker 1: This also transferred over to ancient Greece. The Greeks always
Speaker 1: took inspiration from the Egyptians, just like with bathing, right,
Speaker 1: just like with soap, and they started putting in a
Speaker 1: nice little smell in their grooming routine that continues on today.
Speaker 1: I like little sprits of something which just makes you
Speaker 1: feel good.
Speaker 2: You know, I love it. Yeah, And my middle age,
Speaker 2: I have become a lot more interested in colognes and
Speaker 2: things and try to have some classy ones, nothing too
Speaker 2: acrid or over the top. But I also really like
Speaker 2: a little rose water missed, you know, and like it's refreshing.
Speaker 2: You spray it in your face, closed your eyes and
Speaker 2: kind of missed yourself and it really does feel super nice.
Speaker 2: So I get that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of my favorite quotes about klone for
Speaker 1: anybody considering getting into that game or perfume is cologne
Speaker 1: must be discovered, never announced. Yeah, or also a dabble doom.
Speaker 1: The Romans said a dab will not do them. They
Speaker 1: took personal hygiene almost to a different level. No, they
Speaker 1: wanted to go extra with it.
Speaker 2: No, I know.
Speaker 1: They already had the bath houses, and then they started
Speaker 1: adding a koutraumol there, festooning it with fragrant oils herbs
Speaker 1: and perfuming the waters, which is an interesting thing. You know.
Speaker 1: I've been to Onsen's, I've been to bathhouses before. Perfumed
Speaker 1: water is not something I have too much experience with.
Speaker 2: No, No, nor I do know. Though. A carryover I
Speaker 2: guess from this period of Egyptian sense would be the
Speaker 2: the much wrapped about Egyptian musk. I guess it's a
Speaker 2: sense you can get like. It's also an incense, popular incense.
Speaker 2: But I think it is in a Wu Tang lyric
Speaker 2: where they say something is fly like Egyptian musk.
Speaker 1: I believe you, because they're just fantastic with their strangely
Speaker 1: specific references. You know what I mean. I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to find that lyric and listen to that song.
Speaker 1: They made this mixture. The Romans, not Wu Tang, made
Speaker 1: this mixture they called ungeons, which was charcoal, animal fat,
Speaker 1: scented oil, so kind of like scented soap, basically as
Speaker 1: a paste, and they applied it to the body the
Speaker 1: way you would apply to the odorant. Today, however, the
Speaker 1: world is still divided on what should be considered a
Speaker 1: hygienic or uncomfortable body odor. In the US here where
Speaker 1: we often record this show, it's it's considered a social
Speaker 1: faux paws to have very loud bo right, and you
Speaker 1: hate getting stuck on the train or stuck in an
Speaker 1: elevator or any other enclosed space with someone who just
Speaker 1: smells like they need to clean themselves up.
Speaker 2: Part of it for New Yorkers in particular, have or
Speaker 2: and on just New Yorkers but anyone that is relying
Speaker 2: on close quarter public transit bo is a real triggers say,
Speaker 2: it's not great. In the best of times, when you
Speaker 2: were crowded into a subway car or like an l
Speaker 2: train and someone's like holding on to that little little
Speaker 2: strap on the ceiling fully exposed pit, you do not
Speaker 2: want there to be a green wafting fumes coming from that,
Speaker 2: like in a bugs bunny cart. It's it's egregious.
Speaker 1: It's just it's the old factory version of having music
Speaker 1: or a phone conversation going without headphones, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's just I feel like not everybody comes
Speaker 1: from the same, sir, circumstances. But the ability to bathe
Speaker 1: and the ability to find deodorant or relatively, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a low bar.
Speaker 2: It's a low bar of soap right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be at least here in the West,
Speaker 1: at least. Part of it is these huge, continuing marketing campaigns,
Speaker 1: right and that's why we'll have more of our hippie
Speaker 1: esque friends saying, well, why can't people just smell like people?
Speaker 1: You know, you guys are so programmed. Everybody's got to
Speaker 1: smell like elder flowers. And aluminum.
Speaker 2: That is funny. Yeah, I love the scent of aluminum.
Speaker 2: We'll get into aluminum, by the way, because that is
Speaker 2: a problematic additive of certain types of deodorant, and there's
Speaker 2: sort of a holistic backlash against some of that, let's
Speaker 2: just say, and maybe some of those less chemically products
Speaker 2: they don't quite work as well, and you do sort
Speaker 2: of return back to the masking over actually dealing with
Speaker 2: the issue situation.
Speaker 1: Now, after all the ancient history, it is not until
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight that the first commercial deodorant debuts. It
Speaker 1: is called mum and this happens just a few years
Speaker 1: of the word after the toothpaste stuff. Right, So the
Speaker 1: early form of deodorant came in. It was like a
Speaker 1: wax pasty thing in a metal tin made of zinc
Speaker 1: oxide and then other natural ingredients, stabilizers, you know, things
Speaker 1: for the texture and this cream. Because of that zinc oxide,
Speaker 1: it was able to not just mask your sweat, but
Speaker 1: it was able to eradicate some of the bacteria on
Speaker 1: your skin, and your bacteria is what's making a lot
Speaker 1: of those foul smells.
Speaker 2: Although one might argue some of these early methods of
Speaker 2: anti perse rent weren't the best because they were using
Speaker 2: aluminum salts, which did prevent sweating, but they did so
Speaker 2: by clogging pores, which doesn't sound good. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's good. This is in nineteen o three with ever
Speaker 2: dry No every dry right, like ever dry better?
Speaker 1: Personally, I like ever dry better. It's a cleaner word, actually.
Speaker 2: But every dry doesn't really roll off the tongue.
Speaker 1: I like that point though about aluminum salts because it's
Speaker 1: kind of like saying, oh, someone is breathing too loud,
Speaker 1: so let's shut their nose and take their mouths.
Speaker 2: Problem solve. You do need some breatheability in the skin
Speaker 2: in the underarm, and clogged pores can lead to some
Speaker 2: negative knock on consequences. I believe you can even get
Speaker 2: like infections and stuff if you have too much, you know,
Speaker 2: clogged pores. AnyWho, in nineteen ten in Cincinnati, Ohio, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, we may have talked about the Cincinnati
Speaker 2: I found out many years ago was a big jingle town,
Speaker 2: was a big advertising town, and a lot of like
Speaker 2: jingle writing took place in Cincinnati. To an appropriate mention,
Speaker 2: So the unique combo of a surgeon and his school
Speaker 2: aged daughter as well as a bible salesman, former door
Speaker 2: to door bible salesman, because that used to be a thing.
Speaker 2: All coalesced and you know, sounds like a what is
Speaker 2: it like a walk into a bar kind of joke,
Speaker 2: but they all coalesced and came together to lay the
Speaker 2: foundations of what is now an eighteen billion dollar industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a guy named doctor Abraham D. Murphy,
Speaker 1: and he is in an operating room pretty often because
Speaker 1: he's a doctor. In the early nineteen hundreds, this guy
Speaker 1: is a bit of a renaissance man. So in addition
Speaker 1: to being a crackerjack doctor, he invents a liquid substance
Speaker 1: that helps keep his hands free of sweat in the
Speaker 1: oar and his daughter we mentioned just a second ago.
Speaker 1: Her name is Edna. She tries this liquid anti perspirate
Speaker 1: thing to stop you from sweating on her arm pits,
Speaker 1: and she says, hey, not only are my pits finally dry?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry now, I don't mean to paint you as
Speaker 1: though you're some sweat ridden child. But she says, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, my uh, it's a good.
Speaker 2: Insult, right sweat ridden? Yeah, assults of injury for sure.
Speaker 1: So she says, not only does this dry out my pits,
Speaker 1: but also it helps address bo smells body odor smells,
Speaker 1: and they named it.
Speaker 2: Odor no oh no, isn't odo ban also a thing
Speaker 2: Odo Ban, I want to say, is a spray to
Speaker 2: for for like furniture. It's an odor absorber, odo ban theodoriser.
Speaker 2: It's more of a chemical product for pet solutions to say, right,
Speaker 2: which I think is great and also just sounds like
Speaker 2: one of those old timey brands Odo ban. We have
Speaker 2: Odo oh no? Right? Odor? Oh no? Odor oh no.
Speaker 2: It's just fun to say. You're like, oh no, it's
Speaker 2: more fun. Sorry, we're rewriting advertising history here.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it sounds like, uh, it would
Speaker 1: be a great episode of Deep Space nine. Odo oh
Speaker 1: no for you, that's for you.
Speaker 2: Max and her cousin Yoko No Yoko.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it'd be uh. It would definitely be an
Speaker 3: Odo and Corek episode, but not the one where they
Speaker 3: have to climb up on a mountain because that one's
Speaker 3: really sweat.
Speaker 2: Odo is a character. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Odo is a shifting character from beyond the wormhole.
Speaker 2: He's crazy, one of the local characters in Star Trek history. Fair. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hot take for Max, it's dick at all.
Speaker 3: Okay, wow, not everyone, not everyone loves him, but everyone
Speaker 3: can everyone can agree that he's a.
Speaker 2: Really good character, really compelling.
Speaker 3: Renee Autobate. I can never get his last name.
Speaker 2: It is complicated.
Speaker 3: But he had been acting for he was in his
Speaker 3: seventies I think, or maybe sixties when he did Odo.
Speaker 2: He was a very good actor. Uh.
Speaker 3: He passed away I think twenty nineteen, right after the
Speaker 3: documentary came out. The documentary is also amazing. Our future
Speaker 3: Max is back or recorded one for that flossing bit earlier.
Speaker 3: So how hard is it to put a second addendum
Speaker 3: in here? The beauties of being the producer?
Speaker 2: So I looked it up.
Speaker 3: It's pronounced Renee ober Jenois, Renee ober Jennoi. Apologies because
Speaker 3: I know I'm not nailing the pronunciation perfectly. His first
Speaker 3: credit roll, according to IMDb, was from nineteen seventy where
Speaker 3: he played father John m'kayhee on an episode of Mesh.
Speaker 3: He's also in seventy three episodes of Boston Legal along
Speaker 3: with fellow star trek Alum William Shatner. He did pass
Speaker 3: away in twenty nineteen at the age seventy nine. And
Speaker 3: you know, Noel just said, oh, hot taker, right there, No,
Speaker 3: not at all. According to IGN, he is the seventh
Speaker 3: best character in Star Trek history, while the rap has
Speaker 3: him as eighth. And you may be saying, oh, that's
Speaker 3: not so high. He's behind like people like Data McCoy,
Speaker 3: Cisco Spock, Jean Luke, Ricard Kirk, big names, so very popular,
Speaker 3: r I.
Speaker 2: P Odo.
Speaker 1: So the issue with is that it's so fun.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, if you say that's better, that's better than Odon,
Speaker 2: you just gotta do the it's it's all. It's all
Speaker 2: in how you.
Speaker 1: Say it's Yeah, it's got a good that what it
Speaker 1: reminds me of that toast of lented.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there's only something. No, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: ways emphasize. So, okay.
Speaker 1: Is not perfect. It irritates the skin, especially if you
Speaker 1: use it regularly, and because of the acidic aluminum that
Speaker 1: we've been teasing here, it can also damage your clothing.
Speaker 1: This stuff is hardcore.
Speaker 2: So then we've got another chemist, this one I believe
Speaker 2: from France, entering the Chat in nineteen forty. To help
Speaker 2: out with this problem. He filed a patent for a
Speaker 2: what's called a buffered antiperspirant stop beet with the.
Speaker 1: French ending ette exactly. This resolves that excessive acidity problem
Speaker 1: by combining anti perspirant with a soluble nitrile, which is
Speaker 1: not as bad as it sounds.
Speaker 2: Now it's soluble. You don't want it to be insoluble. Right,
Speaker 2: it's soluble. That means that it well, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm just talking.
Speaker 1: So it's after World War two. This is a huge
Speaker 1: time for American progress and for American consumerism because.
Speaker 2: A lot of those innovations get accelerated due to a
Speaker 2: war effort, and then that stuff sort of trickles down
Speaker 2: into normal, polite society. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, aerosol spray is an excellent example of that. This
Speaker 1: is a technology that came from the military, and now
Speaker 1: people are saying aerosol spray is a new and convenient
Speaker 1: way to apply deodorant. History would prove people started using
Speaker 1: aerosol spray for almost everything through the fifties and sixties
Speaker 1: and even today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but all those CFC's really led to the depopularization
Speaker 2: of aerosols of all kinds. And I would argue that
Speaker 2: there certainly are I see it every now and again
Speaker 2: in a hair salon, but typically things are more like
Speaker 2: would you call them palmdes or you know, or pumps,
Speaker 2: pumps exactly more like a spritz rather than the aerosol
Speaker 2: because in nineteen seventy seven, the FDA banned aluminums or conium,
Speaker 2: which is the active ingredient in aerosols, over safety concerns
Speaker 2: and also of course the EPA raising concerns of those
Speaker 2: CFC propellants used in aerosols causing depletion in our precious
Speaker 2: ozone layer.
Speaker 1: And this is where we can give you some good news, folks.
Speaker 1: In addition to the invention of roll on deodorant and
Speaker 1: the rise and fall of aerosol technology, we've seen real
Speaker 1: positive results from banning aluminum zirconium.
Speaker 2: Like heals itself a little bit done it.
Speaker 1: As of September twenty twenty four, the United Nations found
Speaker 1: the ozone layer is well on track for a full recovery.
Speaker 2: So go team, And not to be political, but just
Speaker 2: do you want to point out that there are some
Speaker 2: qualities to this progress that may well be reversed due
Speaker 2: to some not particularly environmentally friendly policies of various governments
Speaker 2: across the world, not just here in the United.
Speaker 1: Yet it goes back and forth, right and we see
Speaker 1: various cultural shifts. It's just it's tough to get you know,
Speaker 1: even twelve people to agree on something. So getting a
Speaker 1: billion people to forego convenience or fore go profit in
Speaker 1: pursuit of the greater good, that's always going to be.
Speaker 2: A tall milkshake. It's tough. Yeah, especially you know, in
Speaker 2: a in a country and a society where a kind
Speaker 2: of profit is sort of the name of the game,
Speaker 2: and a year over year growth is not just you know,
Speaker 2: a suggestion, it's an expectation.
Speaker 1: Check out our earlier episode, which unfortunately still holds up
Speaker 1: on how the how the US started moving away from
Speaker 1: the term citizen and started calling people consumers.
Speaker 2: Oh that is a fun episode. I totally forgot about that,
Speaker 2: and it really ties into this whole marketing aspect of
Speaker 2: history that we're always on about. And with that we
Speaker 2: have we have war that we want to get to.
Speaker 2: We do starting with aerosol. We could have gotten into hairspray,
Speaker 2: of course, which we teased a little bit, and palmaids
Speaker 2: and various you know, natural remedies for that. But honestly, Ben,
Speaker 2: I think Jeff really went over and above on this one,
Speaker 2: and really the hair stuff is kind of its own thing.
Speaker 2: You know, we can maybe do a history of hairstyling
Speaker 2: and haircuts and hair products, right.
Speaker 1: Especially the ridiculous versions of what people put in their hair,
Speaker 1: either in good faith attempts for better health, or for
Speaker 1: vanity or for spiritual purposes. The story's pretty wild, and
Speaker 1: we can't wait for you to join us on that journey.
Speaker 1: For now, we're going to call it a day. We're
Speaker 1: going to go participate in our brushing, but not overbrushing,
Speaker 1: right so well.
Speaker 2: Also, don't put too much pressure, don't use to it.
Speaker 2: That's one thing I like about my electric toothbrush. It
Speaker 2: tells you when you're pushing too hard, and it also
Speaker 2: vibrates periodically to let you know when to move on
Speaker 2: to the next quadrant.
Speaker 1: Also, don't use too much toothpase. Remember when you see
Speaker 1: ads for toothpaste, that huge s shaped dollup they put
Speaker 1: on there, that's not dolphin and that's just by like
Speaker 1: they make money when you over use toothpaste.
Speaker 2: But also like food styling and that kind of styling,
Speaker 2: like what you're looking at there is some sort of
Speaker 2: polyurethane like you know, folm or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so with that we want to give a
Speaker 1: big thanks and shout out to our super producer mister
Speaker 1: Max Williams, our research associate for this episode, Jeff Factor
Speaker 1: G Bartlett, and then of course aj Bahama's Jacobs. I wonder, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still wondering if he if he saved a morning
Speaker 1: routine from his year of living constitutionally.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't they have used like charcoal too. We haven't
Speaker 2: really talked about activated charcoal have base, which is becoming
Speaker 2: kind of trendy now, but it does strike me as
Speaker 2: maybe something that they would have used in olden times
Speaker 2: to still brush their teeth with charcoal. It's a real
Speaker 2: interesting way to take a really freaky selfie with your
Speaker 2: teeth thought blacked out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We also didn't talk about just the aesthetics of some
Speaker 1: tooth treatments that people used in the past, like that
Speaker 1: period of time in Japan where was considered attractive for
Speaker 1: women to out their teeth blacked.
Speaker 2: Out, and we could also lead that into things like
Speaker 2: grill culture. Yeah, and what's the word, I guess you
Speaker 2: could say aesthetic dentistry.
Speaker 1: Aesthetic dentistry, Oh, yeah, like when people are bejeweling their
Speaker 1: teeth now timporarily.
Speaker 2: Apparently Kanye has gone insane because of the affection that
Speaker 2: he got from his grill piece.
Speaker 1: That's one of the theories, Ed. One of our theories
Speaker 1: is that you will join us very soon for another
Speaker 1: episode in the future.
Speaker 2: Who else do we need to thank here at the end?
Speaker 2: They Oh, obviously we got to think Chris frosciotis and
Speaker 2: he's Jeff Coates here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the Quizzer.
Speaker 2: You already thanked the puzzler A J. Mohamas. I'm Ben.
Speaker 2: Thanks to you, buddy, Thanks to you, Buckaroo. We'll see
Speaker 2: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.