Airheads Releases Candy-Flavored Dental Floss For Halloween

Every Halloween there's some wiseacre in the neighborhood who insists on handing out floss, toothbrushes, or some kind of strange healthy gum to candy-seeking trick-or-treaters. It's difficult to tell if these people are passionate about oral health and hygiene, or just like cleaning toilet paper out of their trees and smashed pumpkin bits off their lawns. Whatever their motivation for doing this, it's always a recipe for disappointed kids who went out seeking the best Halloween treats, and ended up being tricked with mouth wellness instead.

There are a few candy companies that have tried to put a stop to this practice. In fact, there was a dentist in the 19th century who tried to mix the worlds of confections and oral hygiene. His name, according to Mental Floss, was Dr. William James Morrison. He was both a devotee to tooth care and to eating loads of sugar. It is this man the world has to thank for the invention of cotton candy, which was originally known as "Fairy Floss."

Though the goal was never to make cotton candy healthy, it was still a movement toward finding a middle ground between ingesting as much sugar as possible and keeping your mouth from becoming its own kind of painful fright show. Perhaps to honor this tradition — but more likely to help dentists be a little less reviled on October 31 — Airheads has come out with its own candied floss, only this one might actually have some healthcare value.

Airheads candy has an unusual history. Back in the '80s, Lipton Tea was trying to move away from the world of plants soaked in hot water and get in on the candy game. The tea brand asked for someone to develop fruit chews wrapped in rice paper (via Candy Favorites). Strangely, people didn't enjoy their sweet treats being wrapped in rice paper. As a result, Lipton asked for fruit chews without the paper. The result? A sweet, sticky "blob on a plate." This was the beginning of Airheads.

Since those inauspicious days as unformed globs, Airheads have evolved to have somewhat of a shape. The brand also produces gummy chews, bites that are similar to big jelly beans, and even fruity ice cream complete with taffy (via The Impulsive Buy). Some of these have been successful, and others have been fruity ice cream loaded with cold taffy. However, Airheads is still trying to innovate, per a recent press release, and the brand is now doing it by offering candy floss intended to entice people to get those hard-to-reach spots between their teeth.

"This year dentists' houses will be buzzing with trick-or-treaters wanting to get their limited-edition Airheads Candy Flavored Dental Floss before they run out," said Craig Cuchra, who is both the VP of Marketing at Perfetti Van Melle — which makes Airheads — and probably misjudging the demand for floss of any kind. Though this literal candy floss might be reviled as much as this Odyssey Online writer hates Circus Peanuts, at least Airheads can say it tried.