Regarding the Dangers of Chinese Toothpaste

I’ve gotten some emails lately from friends and family. More surprisingly, the emails warned me against (of all things) using Chinese [tag]toothpaste[/tag] for fear of being poisoned.
I was glad for the heads up, but being poisoned is only one of many things I’ve learn to watch out for when shopping for toothpaste here. For your edification, here are brief descriptions of some possible pitfalls.

Poisoning By Anti-Freeze
This is what you’ve probably read about, and, let’s face it, death is the worst of all potential product problems. The FDA discovered that [tag]diethylene glycol[/tag] – or (2-hydroxyethoxy)ethan-2-ol, if you ever need to impress a chemist – was being used as a sweetener in cheap toothpastes made in China. Automobile antifreeze is made of ethylene glycol (which is pretty much the same chemical compound), and just like antifreeze, diethylene glycol will kill you dead if you ingest it.
Here’s the trouble: product boxes here don’t have “Without Diethylene Glycol!” labels on them, so you just have to buy established brands and hope for the best. So far, I’ve had no problems with this.
Death by C₄H₁₀O₃ is much less common of a problem than…

Being Surprised to Death by Poison-Flavored Toothpaste
Having this happen to me marked the first time I realized that I know enough written Chinese to use it in practical situations like going to the corner market to buy toothpaste. I used my usual discriminating shopping technique (looking at pictures on the boxes) to pick out some nice, mint [tag]Crest[/tag] toothpaste.
Later that night I started to brush my teeth, and the minute the toothbrush hit my mouth I knew something was horribly wrong. Honestly: my first thought was, “Holy shit, my toothbrush went rancid!” The experience was like having a fluorinated lemon–something-else cough drop coat my tongue. I couldn’t wash my mouth out fast enough.
After gargling with Listerine and washing the toothbrush off thoroughly, I gave both ‘brush and ‘paste a fast inspection. There were no strange smells or sights associated with the ‘brush. The toothpaste still in the tube smelled like the awful taste though. That’s when I noticed the character 茶 (chá) on the label. [tag]茶[/tag], of course, means “tea”. I had bought green tea and lemon flavored toothpaste. And if I’d read the damn box before going to checkout, I wouldn’t have.
Next time I went to the store I looked on the toothpaste shelves, and there are lots of different tea flavored toothpastes offered by all the different companies. So be aware, this doesn’t taste like mint:
Post Script: As a cheapskate, I couldn’t bring myself to throw a perfectly good tube of toothpaste away (especially since I would have not bought it had I read the box), so I’ve gotten used to using it. It took several weeks to get used to having my mouth taste so sweet. I don’t know that there’s anything worse than waking up to the taste of green tea and lemon toothpaste mixing with your morning breath. But goddamnit, I didn’t waste it!

Moving on, just the ability to read English (or look at and recognize pictures) will help you to avoid…

Buying [tag]Racist Toothpaste[/tag]
The popular and ubiquitous [tag]Darlie[/tag] brand of tooth care products, whose logo looks like someone in blackface, is entirely repellent. It isn’t some sort of a weird mistake, either: the brand used to be called Darkie (and have an even more racist logo) before public outcry forced the company to change it. Of course, they only changed the English name and slightly altered the logo…the Chinese name is still 黑人牙膏, or “Black Man Toothpaste”.

I’m still trying to decide if this playing a role in Bernice being so nuts about Hitler.

So there you have it. Not only do you run the risk of being killed by your toothpaste, but you also have to worry about a flavor bait-and-switch and supporting racism. Who knew buying toothpaste could be a political statement?