Blue Liquid Absorbent



"People do not wish to see scientific demonstrations of pads absorbing amazing quantities of fluids. People also cannot fathom why this fluid is always blue. As Carla and Bill Chandler put it: "If anyone around here starts secreting anything BLUE, the last thing we're going to worry about is how absorbent their pad is.""

- Dave Barry

In commercials featuring absorbency tests, the liquid being absorbed will be bright blue. This is a deliberate attempt to avoid unsavory resemblance to any kind of bodily fluids, even though that is generally the product's intended use. Think about it - red/pink/purple, yellow/orange, or brown? Pretty obvious. Green or black would most likely put you in mind of the same kinds of fluids, except with something gone horribly wrong. Clear wouldn't show up at all. Meanwhile, the only fluid you're going to associate with blue is good old pure, healthy water.

Humourously, a blue liquid test will nearly always have a small disclaimer on-screen, reminding us that this is a "dramatization". Just so the audience didn't think that somebody was actually peeing blue liquid onto the whatever.

Blue liquid was first used in place of the others probably for the simple desire to not Squick out viewers, especially those who might be eating at the time. This, before the internet age, placed some of these products in the "Yes but What Does It Do?" class for viewers under a certain age. Seriously, how does one tell a Poise pad from an Always pad if you don't know the liquid color?

See also Water Is Blue.


 * Ads for Colgate Toothpaste used to use the blue liquid to demonstrate how fluoride gets into teeth, comparing it to the blue soaking into a stick of chalk.
 * Pampers diapers. During a literal Side By Side Demonstration they poured a puddle on The Leading Brand and then moved over to the Pampers while still dripping the liquid so it was just a line of liquid. No wonder the other one was wetter.
 * Even true, often, for things like Bounty paper towels. (Though more recently they use water or juice for a realism effect).
 * Averted in a new pad brand here in Brazil. But it didn't change that much, they use a green liquid.
 * Pretty much any ad for menstrual products. (This does include the Always pads.)
 * This is partly because even advertizing menstrual products was banned until the 1980s, and then it was only allowed if any blood shown was not red or a realistic colour.
 * Averted in a (relatively) old ad for a brand of pads. The ad involved a murder in a gallery or somewhere, then when the detectives and curator (who did the murder) arrived at the scene, the curator sees blood on the floor and uses the pad being advertised to soak it up before the detectives could see it. Needless to say, the ad was quickly pulled.