Makes your mouth go numb, so good to use if you're having a mouth operation (Listerine Total Care)

Member Name: Virtuoso

Product:	Listerine Total Care
Date:	24/02/09 (379 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: probably kills bacteria and makes your mouth healthy, but who knows

Disadvantages: Tastes like hell, and makes me speak like I have socks stuffed in my mouth

Apparently this purple elixir has six benefits, but the only people benefiting from my purchase of this are Superdrug and Listerine, having slightly increased their turnover when I bought it. I may as well list what these advantages are before I tell you why this stuff is on my list of things I wouldn't give to my worst enemy.

The advantages are:

Reduces plaque
Maintains healthy gums
Strengthens teeth against decay
Prevents tarter to help keep teeth naturally white
Kills uoti 99.9% of bacteria in lab tests
Up to 24 hour fresh breath protection

I have no arguments against any of these, and have no doubt they are all true except for the last one which is absurd because it depends what you eat and drink; the second I have a cup of coffee my breath is like a camel's bottom whether I have used Listerine or not.

So what is my beef with Listerine? It seems that in order to have all these tremendous benefits they have had to make it so incredibly strong that it actually has an anesthetising effect on my mouth. That's right, if I swill this around my mouth for the recommended 30 seconds my mouth becomes numb, and unsurprisingly this is a very unpleasant sensation. In case I am some kind of 'mouth freak' I have asked my girlfriend to confirm that she experiences the same thing, and indeed she does. This would be something I would be willing to put up with if I thought this was some kind of miracle teeth saving juice, but there are plenty of competitor brands to choose from that do not knock your mouth out of service.

The flavour is supposedly 'clean mint' but I would have called it 'fresh dentist surgery'. It's not really minty at all, it's a very odd combination of tastes that I am incapable of determining. I see that 'Eucalyptol' and 'Menthol' are on the ingredients list, so now that I think about it perhaps this tastes like a combination of mint and Vicks Vaporub. All I know for sure is that it's quite repulsive.

On the back it says "Not suitable for use in children under 12 years" but what it should say is "not suitable for people with mouths that need to function, or for people with taste buds."

Despite my moans, does this stuff actually work? Well I'm quite fastidious about brushing my teeth so it is hard to tell. The six benefits are all impossible to quantify yourself, who knows how much tartar of plaque they have, or how many bacteria are in their mouth, life is too short to worry about such things. Just brush your teeth, and go to the dentist.

I bought this on a 2 for 1 deal from Superdrug but this offer no longer applies, you can buy a 250ml bottle for £2.50 or a huge 500ml bottle for $419 from Amazon. That's a lot of money in my opinion for this, and certainly not good value for money.

Summary: Listerine, you messed up, just admit it.