Debunked – The True Meaning of the Color Bar on a Tube of Toothpaste

Another claim is blindly being shared by people on Facebook who are taking what they see at face value and accepting it as Gospel without doing five minutes of research to see whether or not it's true <SPOILER ALERT - It's not>.

The claim that accompanies the photo on the above-left states,

Pay attention when buying toothpaste, at the bottom of the toothpaste tube there is a color bar. And do you only know the original meaning of the color bar! Try to choose green and blue, there are four kinds:

Green: natural;

Blue : Natural + Medicine;

Red : Natural + Chemical composition;

Black : pure chemical.

I've seen several people share this on Facebook and found it a little hard to believe, so I took to the web to find out whether or not it was true. It took me less than five minutes to find out it wasn't. Five. Minutes.

A quick Google search of "toothpaste color codes" resulted in numerous results debunking the claim, many of which stating the terms, "natural, "medicine", and "chemical" are far to vague to determine whether or not they should be consider good, bad, or harmful to our health as there are several chemicals that occur naturally that are perfectly OK for human consumption.

So what is the point of those little squares then? As it turns out, it has nothing to do with the contents of the paste. They're not even put there by the toothpaste manufacturer, but by the company responsible for making the tube the paste will eventually fill. The industry term for them is "eye mark". Simply put, they are markers for the sensors on the machines that cut and crimp them into individual tubes. That's it.

If you really want to know what makes up that magic paste that claims to remove plaque build up, or make your smile ten times whiter, try reading the ingredients.

[Source: Snopes.com]