Colored Squares on Toothpaste Show What’s Inside – Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Colored squares found at the bottom of toothpaste tubes can be used to determine if a product is all natural, purely chemical, or a combination of both.
The Truth:
Colored squares can’t be used to determine what ingredients are in a particular brand of toothpaste.
The squares are called color mark sensors and are used during the manufacturing process. The squares enable automated equipment to determine where tubes need to be positioned during the filling and sealing process.
Banner Engineering, a company that produces color mark sensors explains that, “Color sensors detect subtle color contrasts to inspect registration marks using one, two or three color LEDs.”
The eRumor started on social media with a post that showed a picture of various consumer products in tubes that each had a different colored square on the bottom. The post claimed:
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.
Reading a product’s ingredients is the easiest way to determine its composition. The packaging of all natural products is usually clearly labeled, but it’s still suggested that consumers check the ingredients because the FDA has not developed a definition for the use of the term “natural” or similar words.