teeth – Life In A Word

Dental Essential

When I filled a prescription at my supermarket’s pharmacy recently, the line of customers snaked down an aisle of toiletries. I surfed on my phone for a few minutes as I waited but eventually took note of the products on display around me. To the right, endless shampoos, conditioners, sprays, and other hair care items. To the left, nothing but rows and rows of toothpaste.

If you’re a Millennial or older, I’ll bet you’ve brushed a time or two with Crest or Colgate. Both products have dominated the toothpaste market since their humble beginnings in the 1950s. I was raised on Crest and saw no reason to change brands as a young adult. But these days, like most anything I put into my mouth I’m a little more selective.

The shelves of toothpaste in my supermarket caught my attention for two reasons. First, the options from a single manufacturer these days are daunting. Crest may have only eight product lines (like “Gum Health” or “Kids”) but that translates to a total of fifty-seven unique tubes of paste. Wow. So you’re telling me you’d know which one would be perfect for you?

My second observation: there are surprisingly few players in the game for a product each of us uses at least twice a day. Crest and Colgate dominate the shelf space; I’d put the number at 85%. The other 15% – at least in my supermarket – goes to products from Sensodyne and Arm & Hammer. Sensodyne targets those of you with sensitive teeth. Arm & Hammer promotes, naturally, the perceived benefits of baking soda.

The truth is, there are dozens of toothpastes besides Crest and Colgate. Just think of it like a chessboard: you have the two kings and then you have the rest of the pieces. Those pieces include a few that make me nostalgic. For a short time I had a “brush” with Pepsodent; its unique taste flavored with sassafras. My dentist’s recommendations during my cavity-prone years included Mentadent and Aim (neither of which took hold). And honorable mention goes to Pearl Drops, which I never tried but was the first product to add sex appeal to brushing your teeth.

I don’t know anyone who uses Pepsodent or Pearl Drops anymore, but I also think Crest and Colgate are finally getting serious challengers. Today’s generation (and those behind it) is more enlightened. In fact, my own choice for my toothbrush – Earthpaste – has to be purchased at a specialty store or online.

I’ve talked about Earthpaste before, in Polishing the Pearls. That post was more about the ingredients in toothpaste than the products themselves. But ingredients certainly matter. Crest contains between fifteen and twenty (and some are better left in a science lab). Earthpaste contains just five, including bentonite clay, salt, and essential oils. I have no problem putting any of those in my mouth, including the “dirt” of bentonite clay.

The truth is, if you can stand the bitter taste you can just brush with baking soda. It’s a short list of ingredient that actually benefit your dental hygiene. And for me, the habits I’ve locked in besides brushing far outweigh the importance of which toothpaste I choose. Daily flossing (at night). Oral rinses. Toothpicks for my close-together teeth. Recent trips to the dentist would suggest I’ve got a good regimen going.

As for you Gen X, Y, Z and especially Alpha members, there’s a palpable point to this post. 99% of humans will continue to brush with toothpaste. Crest and Colgate still dominate the market seventy-odd years after their debuts (at least in America). It seems to me there’s room for another low-ingredient high-health product like Earthpaste. I’d fire up that home chemistry lab before someone else beats you to it. There’s potential prodigious profit in the production of paste!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

String Instrument

March is looking decidedly mundane, if the first five days are any indication. I’m still recovering from my St. David’s Day festivities on the 1st (more about that here) so I suppose it’s all downhill until April. Even so, the laundry is washed and folded, the dishes are done and put away, and it’s grey and rainy outside, so what could I possibly have to talk about today? Why, dental floss, of course!

Floss is even more mundane than my March to-date, yet there I stood, dwelling on the little nylon spool as I spun out another 18″ this morning. Snap off a length, wind tightly around the fingers, and commence the see-saw journey between and around each of your 28 pearlies (32 if you still have “wisdom”). It’s like you’re playing the smallest string instrument in the orchestra, and all you can contribute is the occasional enamel squeak.

Why do I wonder about floss? So you don’t have to! On the list of all activities considered “morning routine” you’re probably way more invested in brushing your teeth, washing your face, or even throwing on deodorant. Flossing is the one where you stare into the mirror thinking, “Why can’t I text while I do this?”

Floss. Looks weird and sounds weird, but it’s nothing more than a silky strand, at least in its original form. Then Johnson & Johnson came up with the nylon alternative – much easier to manufacture in large quantities – and today’s product was born. Waxed or unwaxed. Mono or multi-filament. Tape or picks. Whatever your weapon against plaque and gingivitis, we’re all participating in pretty much the same activity.

Candy floss is just another name for cotton candy. Meat floss is a dried, fluffy version of Chinese pork (appropriately named “yuk”). Floss is also an embroidery term, a town and river in Germany, and an awkward dance move where the arms swing rapidly behind and in front of the body. But none of those are the first to come to mind when I say “floss”, right?

Here’s what I want to know. Why hasn’t someone made flossing more convenient in the 125+ years we’ve all been doing it? Seriously, I’m picturing those little scrubbing bubbles zooming all over the porcelain of your bathtub, leaving it squeaky clean. Couldn’t we have a similar product we swish around in our mouths? It’d be like a dose of Pop Rocks, where you have a few moments of crackling and hissing in your mouth, followed by a rinse and spit. Bye-bye plaque, no nylon required.

I didn’t manage to “habit” flossing until about age 25. Before that I was too busy accumulating cavities. I’m still trying to perfect the see-saw technique after all these years. Scrape each tooth instead of just snapping up and down between them. Rewind the floss a few times on your fingers so you’re not using the same inches on all of your teeth. Floss before you brush. Finally – the tough one for me – make flossing part of your evening routine, not your morning.

Here’s the math (because I just have to know these things). If I’ve really flossed every day since my mid-twenties, I’ve used over four miles of the stuff (or 20,000+ ft). At 18″ per cleaning that’s countless little lengths. But here’s another way to look at it. A typical dispenser of floss contains 55 yards, meaning in almost forty years I’ve only purchased 128. You could probably fit those dispensers into a single shoebox. And at $1.29 per dispenser, the whole box only sets you back $165.

Until someone invents those edible scrubbing bubbles, I’ll keep filling up shoeboxes with empty floss dispensers. My product is Reach; yours might be something more exotic like “Grin Fine Flosspyx” or “Boca Ela Mint”. No matter how fancy the name, it’s just a piece of nylon string. And until my March gets more exciting you’ll find me in front of the mirror each morning (er, evening), playing my little string instrument.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Foul Mouth

Search the Guinness World Records website using the word “mouth”, and you’ll get pages and pages of results – over 250 mouthy records. Most seedless grapes stuffed into the mouth: 94. Most lit candles: 37. Most tennis balls: 5 (by a dog). Most drinking straws: 459. We’ll put just about anything into our mouths these days. Now add to the list baking soda for brushing, coconut oil for “pulling”, and charcoal for whitening. That last one; it makes me pause. Charcoal?

Charcoal is the mound of briquettes in your barbecue. Charcoal is the sooty remains of a smoldering campfire. Charcoal is “lightweight black carbon and ash residue produced from animal and vegetation substances”. Yet we choose to put this substance into our mouths? Apparently “Sensodyne”, “Pearl Drops”, and all those other white-whiteners didn’t do the trick. Checkmate. Black wins.

If hygiene headlines speak the truth, black is the new white (or something like that). Charcoal powders and pastes are the trend-setters these days, turning the mouth solid black before – allegedly – turning the teeth a whiter shade of white. The color cycle of toothpastes is now complete, starting with the classic whites from days gone by, moving through the entire rainbow (including the blues and reds of Colgate; the green gels of several), and concluding with a shade the darker side of midnight. But is blacker really better? Some fan-quotes are a little vague: “I’m using this [to show] I’m in the know,” says one, and “Everyone wants to try something new, but it has to be something that looks cool,” says another, and “I’m doing it to encourage dialogue.” Sounds like charcoal is more about image and less about whiter teeth.

Rather than post an in-progress and visually-disgusting photo, check out Hannah Hart’s brief demonstration of charcoal whitening here. She dips her brush into what can only be described as a tin of shoe polish, morphs her mouth/lips/teeth from clean-and-white to blacker-than-black, destroys her sink (honestly; it’ll never be the same again), and finally, shows off her stained tongue; a regrettable side effect of thirty days of carbon consumption.

Watching Hannah’s video, I can’t help picture something entirely inedible dripping from her mouth. Looks like black paint, used motor oil, or the sap of some deep forest tree you wouldn’t take big money to consume. No matter how effective charcoal powder is for your pearlies, I can’t stomach the idea. Maybe I should try it without a mirror.

Now let me admit to a little hypocrisy:

1) I relish black foods, so I have no problem putting “black” into my mouth. Among my favorites: olives, licorice, coffee, and black beans. I also don’t shy away from blackberries, black bread (made with bamboo charcoal!), black rice, and the black of mushrooms. I’m told I should try squid ink pasta.

2) I brush my teeth with a product called “Earthpaste”. Earthpaste (“amazingly natural”) is exactly what it sounds like. Mix together dirt (well, clay actually), a little salt, sweetener, and oil, and brush, brush, brush. It’s not sweet – though flavors include peppermint, lemon twist, cinnamon – and the dry, gritty feel takes some getting used to. But Earthpaste sold me for what it doesn’t contain: glycerin, fluoride, foaming agents, and artificial colorings.

It stands to reason if a) I have no problem putting black things into my mouth, and b) I’m willing to brush with dirt, I should be willing to c) brush with charcoal (A+B=C or something like that). But Hannah’s video ruined it for me. So did the facts behind the teeth-whitening. Yes, bleaching gels abound, but for the most part “whitening” means abrasives. Over time, you’re removing the top layer of your teeth to expose something whiter underneath. Goodbye enamel; goodbye tooth strength. Charcoal, as it turns out, does the same thing, only in black. Short-term: whiter teeth. Long-term: digging into the dentin.

My recommendation? Skip the charcoal. Maintain your inner child. Eat dirt instead.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”. Also, from the Wall Street Journal article, “The Latest Fad in Tooth Whitening Is to Turn Them Black”.