Kolynos


Kolynos was the name of a line of oral care products created by Newell Sill Jenkins in 1908 and acquired by Colgate-Palmolive in 1995.
The products were very popular in the thirties and forties, and sponsored several well-known radio programs, including Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. See.
Although not now readily available in the US, the brand remains strong in Latin America, and also manufactured in Hungary, Slovenia. In Brazil, Kolynos was the second best- selling product, after Colgate itself. Because of antitrust concerns at the time of the acquisition, Colgate-Palmolive agreed to suspend marketing Kolynos-branded toothpaste in Brazil for a number of years, but Colgate-Palmolive shortly began selling what was essentially the same product, with very similar packaging and marketing, under a new brand called Sorriso, successfully transferring most of the customer loyalty to the new line of toothpaste. Kolynos jingles have been written in several languages. In Peru, Kolynos is synonymous with toothpaste and a big smile can be called a Kolynos smile.
The Kolynos brand is mentioned in a passage in The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger:
In the novel Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie there is a chapter titled "The Kolynos Kid".
The brand is also mentioned in The Black Gang by Herman Cyril McNeile: