Floss tastes strongly of pickles. Dill pickles. Why?

June 18, 2019 2:03 PM

I bought some Oral-B Essential Floss that claims to be mint-flavored. That's a lie, all I can taste is pickles. This is putting a slight damper on my flossing routine, but mostly it sends me to bed every night thinking, 'why pickles?!?'. Do you have this floss, and can you taste the pickles? Does anyone know how artificial mint flavor could end up coming across as a freshly opened jar of dill pickles?

For the sake of science, I ran some tests:
1. I got a second pack (from a different country!) in case there was some sort of pickle accident in my local grocer, alas I ended up with yet more picklefloss.
2. My spouse tried it, tasted pickles.
3. Pickle flavor remains regardless of whether or not actual, non-floss pickles are part of my diet.

posted by Behemoth, in no. 302-bis, with the Browning to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

Best answer: The Johnson and Johnson brand of mint flavored floss I have tastes like mint to me with no hint of dill, so I'm not entirely sure what happened with the Oral-B floss, but I thought this info was interesting:

Carvone is fascinating because the molecule comes in two forms that are mirror images of each other — and yet the two versions smell and taste different to us. R-(–)-carvone is the form found in spearmint, while S-(–)-carvone, which has the odor of caraway, is the mirror-image form found in caraway seeds and dill.

From here: What is Mint?
posted by danielleh at 2:22 PM on June 18, 2019 [38 favorites]

Accoutrements makes/made a pickle-flavored floss, but it seems it's not available any place online now. I wonder if there was a mix-up somewhere?
posted by queensissy at 2:24 PM on June 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

I was intrigued by this question because Crest Pro Health toothpaste tastes like pickles to me!
posted by esker at 6:12 PM on June 18, 2019

I noticed this with a certain kind of Sensodyne, too. I was so weirded out that I made friends try it, and they agreed--dill pickles. I love pickles, but I don't want to brush with them.

So yeah, more anecdata that certain dental-care products taste like pickles.
posted by QuickedWeen at 7:50 AM on June 19, 2019