7 Products That Didn’t Start Out The Way You Might’ve Thought!

5) Mouth Wash? Scalp Rinse? What’s the Difference?

The names we think of today to help with dandruff are all very specific products. We reach for a bottle of dandruff shampoo because that is is the common wisdom of our age. But, in 1948 you might have applied Listerine to your scalp in the hopes of killing the “bug” that causes dandruff. Experts still don’t agree that dandruff has one cause, but back then this was a prevailing theory. To get rid of “infectious” dandruff, they suggest using this as a rinse twice a day! The ad goes so far as to advise against waiting for the symptoms: go ahead and use it everyday to keep flakes at bay.

4) How About Some Fried Lisa?

Regional names for foods and plants can vary, as do the tastes of the locals. In the south, the taste for the fish, mullet, has a long tradition. Looking to upgrade the image of the fish from what northerners may have considered a fish exclusively for bait, the Florida State Board of Conservation had the genius idea to call the fish “lisa” in the early 1960s and to promote this new name to states outside the established market. Sales of the Florida fish did not improve, and this strange experiment has become little more than a humorous quip in the footnotes of time.

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