Is it a sign of increasing age that one finds toothpaste boring?
Don’t get me wrong, I do not mean that I have stopped brushing my teeth at least twice a day – the merest thought of skipping that chore is contrary to every fibre of my being. Brushing one’s teeth is something that has been instilled in each and every one of us that, while other facets of civilization might drop off, teeth brushing is something that is so quasi-instinctive that it has to be done.
On occasion, for various reasons, I have gone to bed without brushing my teeth, and have been unable to go to sleep. I then realize that an essential rite of night has not been accomplished. I get up, I brush my teeth, return to bed, and instantly fall asleep. So I am not talking about skipping anything. It is more the taste.
When I was younger, we used Gibbs SR, a toothpaste I rather liked because it used my initials. I have never, until a minute ago, known what the SR actually stood for. I now know that is stands for Sodium Ricinoleate, a substance derived from castor oil and used to prevent gum disease and give the toothpaste its tingle. Gibbs SR famously used the idea of the ‘tingle’ to inform the format of the first advert on commercial television in the UK when a tube of Gibbs SR being squeezed onto a toothbrush was shown encased in a block of ice to emphasise the effect. The block of ice was not real, it was clear plastic, and so the first advert was also a visual lie. Which seems somehow significant!
Brushing one’s teeth was something that had to be done, not something there to be enjoyed, it was a duty. Therefore, a toothpaste like Euthymol emphasised that by being bright pink and revolting. It obviously worked on the “if it tastes disgusting it must be doing you some good,” the same principle used by the liquid antiseptics that were felt to be helping your cut knees because they stung when applied to the injury.
My grandparents used a completely different toothpaste which in my memory was Ipana toothpaste, I only ever used that in Maesteg, though I suspect that we brought out own when we stayed there.
My father used Eucryl tooth powder because he smoked a pipe and he used the abrasive qualities of the power to try and get rid of the nicotine stains. I have never smoked, but I did use this powder on foreign holidays when sampling the local cuisine and wine as those seemed to leave evidence of their consumption more obviously than home food.
I vividly remember when I was about 10 being allowed to choose Signal toothpaste – which had stripes! And a higher price than the ordinary pastes, so that was a one off rather than a regular purchase.
Nowadays there is a bewildering array of toothpaste not only branded but also own makes. And the price is reasonable.
Virtually the only thing you need to check is that the parts per million of fluoride must be from 1,350 to 1,500. As far as I can tell, anything else is just cosmetic packaging.
As I said at the beginning of this piece, I get utterly bored with the toothpaste by the time I (almost) get to the end of the tube, so my ‘dental hygiene’ drawer in the bathroom is full of (almost) exhausted tubes of past toothpaste – there is a part of me that cannot bring myself to throw away a tube of toothpaste that isn’t fully and exhaustively squeezed to extract the very last modicum of the preparation. But I do deliberately buy a variety of pastes, usually own-make – while checking the back of the tube to ensure that the minimum ppm of fluoride so that I am not entirely wasting my money.
The paste that I am using at the moment is a herbal concoction that seems to have something like aloe which actually numbs the lips! It is also a light brown putty-like colour and tastes . . . interesting. As I bought this online as a sort of impulse buy, I did not do my customary check, and discovered when I had bought it, that it was fluoride free. I therefore now add a morsel from one of the (almost) empty tubes and then put the new paste on top.
This is not an efficient use of either toothpaste or time, but the taste is marginally more interesting, and its doing the job, so I feel its justified.
And who else has a toothpaste cocktail in the mornings!
