Listerine always grossed me out. Who wants to put this puke yellow substance in their mouth. Now I've never tried the minty Listerine, so I really have nothing more to say.

Whenever I find myself with a bottle of Listerine on my counter, I make sure to vandalize it with a Sharpie by adding a B to the front of the name. One gets the sense that the germs are "dying a painful, agonizing death" because the tastebuds, are in fact, experiencing that.

That said, there's definitely something to the machismo of seeing how long one can swish that acidic substance before spitting--much like deciding that "nuclear hot" wings isn't hot ENOUGH, and ordering the "suicide hot with extra red pepper." And for the spiritually minded, I guess there's the notion of "touch the coal to the lips;" that this pain is somehow cleansing.

I suspect that our dentists would tell us that no overmarketed product can ever do for us what a few minutes with some floss will. But that would taking the pain too far.