No Toothpaste? No Problem
posted at 9:34 am
on Sep. 18, 2006
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I booked a flight by telephone recently and before I could make my reservation, there was a recording on the phone of how this fluid and that gel and the other balm would not be allowed on airplanes. Toothpaste was mentioned by name, and it reminded me I’ve been meaning to blog about toothpaste.
I don’t use toothpaste. I haven’t used it for about four years, and before that my usage was sporadic. Susie would go through a tube about five times faster than I would.
Since I stopped using toothpaste, I haven’t gotten a single cavity. Not that I had a bunch before, but I’m just pointing out that, near as I can tell, there haven’t been any bad effects from my lack of pasteage.
No dentist or hygienist has ever asked me, or been able to tell, that I don’t use toothpaste. (They do seem fairly good at spotting that I don’t floss much.)
There seems to be several reasons people use toothpaste. For one, it makes your mouth smell good. But I think that breath mints can do the same thing, and besides, the good scent of toothpaste goes away in about 30 minutes, and it makes your breakfast taste icky. Breath mints can be applied instantly, anywhere, and come in different flavours, whereas I almost never had more than one flavour of toothpaste, namely, “kinda minty.”
There’s fluoride in toothpaste, which is supposed to be good for teeth. But if your water supply is fluoridated, and you get the fluoride treatment at the dentist, I’d say you’re covered.
Lastly, I think some people feel like toothpaste helps you abrade the plaque from your teeth and keep it suspended so it doesn’t re-cover the teeth, the way suds do the same for you when you’re washing a car.
But I say that you can achieve the same effect by brushing carefully and thoroughly, and that the extra time to apply toothpaste and rinse it, if spent actually brushing your teeth a little more, can result in a cleaner outcome. I also think that I can tell better if my teeth are actually clean when i don’t use toothpaste; when I use it, everything in my mouth feels kind of slick and clean, even if I didn’t brush properly everywhere.
I’m curious to know if I’m the only non-toothpaste user out there. Now, if only someone would invent a powdered shampoo, I could go back to bringing only carry-on luggage again.
Keywords: breath • brush • crest • dentist • lack • mint • susie • teeth • toothpaste
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