Tide Pod Challenge Hits College Campuses

Back in the Roaring Twenties, crazy college kids donned raccoon coats and swallowed goldfish. Flash forward nearly 100 years and they've swapped raccoon fur for Canada Goose jackets and goldfish for laundry detergent packs—but putting a pod in your mouth is a lot more dangerous than eating Goldie.


According to an article in USA Today, teens are putting Tide Pods in their mouths and even cooking with them as part of The Tide Pod Challenge. But health officials and industry executives are not amused. Medical experts note that consumers who ingest even a small amount of concentrated detergent can cause diarrhea and vomiting. In some cases, some of the detergent could even find its way into the lungs and cause breathing difficulties. 


Procter & Gamble and other unit dose detergent manufacturers have gone to great lengths to alert consumers about the dangers of ingesting their products. For several years, The American Cleaning Institute has urged consumers to properly store and handle laundry packets. Since Tide Pods were introduced Procter & Gamble has revamped its packaging to make it more difficult for children to open. Keeping teens and college kids from doing stupid things? That's not nearly as easy, just ask any parent!