can anyone beat my toothbrush and paste weight?

[Max Dilthey]

Toob makes a travel toothbrush. The plastic case is nonsense, throw it out, but the toothbrush heads are made of extremely light cheap plastic, and are NOT connected to the plastic casing. Replacement heads are 2 for $2.95 at EMS and, with practice, are just the right length for serious and thorough brushing.

Plus, the reusable toothpaste tube works great, and it lets you steal toothpaste from hostels and nice old ladies along the trail. I love this setup, but I don't know the grams. probably a little more than some because of the toothpaste holder, but I bet my toothbrush weight slaughters some of yours because of how cheap and light the plastic is.

Here's a link:

http://www.rei.com/product/737990/aurelle-toob-brush

[John Donewar]

It's not lighter or the lightest but it works for me.

The toothbrush is a ….

I stuffed the zip lock of 10 Archtek tabs inside of the self storing handle of the brush along with the brush itself. Total weight of the kit is now 27 grams with a relatively "full size" toothbrush!

You'll notice that there is a large chunk of plastic on the rear of the brush section of the G U M unit.

It is just begging to be drilled full of holes or somehow cut down to get rid of some of that dead weight.

The self storage "case" portion has ventilation holes. More of those could be added or enlarged for more weight savings.

Party On,

Newton

[Curry]

the toothpaste dot last for about 4 brushings.

[mik matra]

John, your toothbrush is almost identical to the one I 'started with' before I got to it with a hack saw and other tools.

I like the pallet toothpaste idea!!

[Nathan Hays]

If you like using toothpaste, squeeze a bunch into a plastic straw and fold the ends over. One end gets taped permanently shut, the other has an easy to remove rubber band.

This works for all kinds of things including seasonings, sunscreen, etc..

[Sumi Wada]

I was in Japan in November and every hotel had these toothbrush/toothpaste sets as part of the bathroom amenities. I cut down the handle to 5" and the set is 12g.

I fully admit to cleaning out every single hotel I stayed in… :D

[Gregory Stein]

Hi folks!

Why don't you put 2 pieces of tooth paste for each day of hiking. Then dry them (2-3) days. Then put them into ziploc bag. Add some tooth powder or even wheat flour to keep pieces separated (I don't even add powder).
0) Works great!
1) ziploc is lighter than any tube
2) you carry the exact amount of paste you need.

Before use, just chew a little the piece of dried paste.

[Tony Ronco]

I've experimented with dehydrated toothpaste dots, and I found they don't re-hydrate all that well :-(

Perhaps that's the "nature of the beast" (= and just get over it – that they don't rehydrate completely) or perhaps there's a better way of drying them out.

In the meantime, I'm still relying on Dr.Bronners

[Tim Zen]

Eco-Dent tooth powder.

[Mike V]

I found that toothpaste dots do not re-hydrate very well either, they typically resulted in a mouthful of toothpaste chunks. I ended up deciding to apply the same technique that works for re-hydrating dehydrated meats; smaller pieces. I ended up throwing my toothpaste dots into a coffee bean grinder. The end result was something similar to toothpaste powder but it is malleable enough to pinch into a wad of paste that can easily be placed on the brush head. The best part is that it re-hydrates into more or less normal toothpaste in my mouth almost instantly. I simply carry the appropriate amount in a medicine size zip lock, for a 3-5 day trip the weight doesn't even register on my scale.

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