The $11 Tube of Toothpaste

I spent $11 on a tube of toothpaste.

Toothpaste is one of the few things I normally scrimp on.  I grew up in a household that bought Tom’s of Maine, so I’ve rebelled in my adulthood by buying Colgate, with fluoride, additives and all.  The lack of fluoride in Tom’s of Maine was better for my health, but was devoid of the minty freshness of classic toothpaste.  Colgate felt less objectionable than Crest for some reason - which I still can’t identify - and I’ve used it for the last five years.

Until now.  I’m a sucker for good packaging and an Italian pedigree.

Marvis is the toothpaste of the fashion world.  The brand’s Italian provenance and the tube’s sleek appearance make it look a step or two fancier than its competitors.  Certainly, brushing your teeth with $11 Italian toothpaste is more exhilarating than polishing pearly whites with Crest or Colgate, based on the exotic novelty alone.

But is Marvis - in its small, silver tube - worth the extra few dollars?

Perhaps it’s the placebo effect, but I’ve enjoyed brushing my teeth more with Marvis.  In fact, I look forward to brushing my teeth each night since I’ve begun using Marvis.  The brand’s Classic Strong Mint toothpaste (Marvis made their name known with their Whitening Mint variant, but they have several options, including an enticing Amarelli Licorice flavor) is - as advertised - strong and spicier than any drugstore or supermarket brand.  If you brush your tongue or let it linger in your mouth long enough, it begins to sting a little.  In pain lies pleasure, however, and once you rinse your mouth the burn is replaced by the flavor of freshness.  If freshness has a flavor, it’s Marvis mint.

My teeth also look whiter since I switched from Colgate to Marvis, or at least I tricked myself into thinking so to justify the toothpaste’s exorbitant cost.  As an inveterate coffee drinker, this provides me comfort in knowing my teeth won’t stain.  After all, Marvis is favored by smokers - probably because of its strength - so it’s likely it has similar powers for the caffeine addict.

In a piece on High Snobiety, the whitening effect is one of the few selling points of Marvis which, beyond its niche status, is an ordinary toothpaste.  Writer Jason Dike cited British Dental Health Foundation Research that concluded “...the only things of note were a 3% NAF level (dangerously high) and the use of titanium dioxide (can be abrasive according to the percentage used). In short, it’s basically a rather standard toothpaste with a slightly mintier taste.”

$11 is a hefty sum to plunk down for toothpaste regularly - especially when the levels of certain additives raise alarm among health organizations.  Once you go Marvis, however, you have a hard time going back, no matter how loud your wallet screams “Ouch!”  For one, it makes your toiletry cabinet look more luxurious and furthermore, the additional mintiness - while it shouldn’t make a difference - feels refreshing at the beginning and end of a long day, even if it’s just the marketing placebo kicking in.  Marvis capitalized on their Italian heritage in order to market their toothpaste as a niche product, and because of the fashion world’s association with all things Italian, it worked; even a skeptic like me fell for it.  Sometimes it hurts to be a sucker for good packaging and an Italian pedigree.