Tooth Paste Dots: which toothpaste

[Thomas Burns]

I agree (I don't carry anything else — neither soap nor toothpaste — on the trail), but with this proviso:

I only use BS for teeth brushing on the trail and only occasionally in real life. The abrasives in many toothpastes are buffered. Baking soda contains neither buffers nor fluorides. The additives in toothpaste really are there to help your teeth in one way or another, which is why I'm going to try the dots — and for fun, too.

Stargazer

[M B]

If you want to spend few fun hrs reading, look up fluoride in toothpaste and drinking water, and research what the data foundation for it all is. Quite controversial in fact, almost nonexistent data, and actually both are very dangerous and harmful to you. Originally sponsored by Alcoa I recall, who had a fluoride waste stream to get rid of.

One of the biggest scams ever pulled on the american people, in many opinions. Thru municipal water supplies, your government administers harmful chemicals to you without your consent.

[Thomas Burns]

As the old sixties joke button slogan goes:

"Help! The paranoids are after me."

Sorry, all, about the thread hijack. I'm done. Goodbye.

Stargazer

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

How durable are toothpaste dots? Will a baggie of toothpaste dots turn into a baggie of toothpaste crumbs after the rigors of a week on the trail?

[Konrad .]

Thanks everyone for the tips. We ultimately tried sensodyne b/c my girlfriend went out and picked some up before I had a chance to relay to her your guy's suggestion regarding Crest Original. Anyhow, Sensodyne works great. We made two really long strips of toothpaste on parchment paper, at which point they were dubbed "toothpaste turds" After allowing them to air dry for about 1 week, we finished them off in our dehydrator.

For those that are curious about the benefits of toothpaste dots…there's surprisingly a good amount of weight saved. Our toothpaste logs weighed 1.3oz fresh out of the tube. After air drying and dehydrating, they weighed .9 ounces. So there was .4 ounces of water in there. I bagged them in a tiny tiny ziploc that wouldnt even register on my scale. Sprinkled a bit of baking soda in there for good measure.

Even when compared to travel sized toothpaste, the dots save a nice chunk of weight since you're leaving behind all that water and plastic tube packaging. Also, It's nice to just grab 2 dots for a weekend trip and call it done.

Dan, about durability. After dehydrating them, they become pretty hard. So long as they aren't in the bottom of your pack, I don't really see a problem. I'll be keeping them in a bear canister over 21 days or so, so I'll let you know how they fare sometime in late September.

[David Ure]

A surprising amount of weight saved?

[Konrad .]

Yes.

In the context of 1.3 ounces, 30% weight savings was a surprise to me.

Then think about longer trips, resupplying only dried dots, not having to carry around empty tubes in b/n resupply points. Considering all the crazy things people do here to save .5 ounces. It makes sense to me, and I'm sure someone in the SUL/XUL forum would appreciate this.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Neat stuff. Thanks Konrad.

[Damien Tougas]

I am a huge fan of tooth powder. Tastes fresher than plain old baking soda. Our favorite is Uncle Harry's: http://www.uncleharrys.com/store/index.php/cPath/48_57

[Heath Pitts]

Has anyone tried Archtek Toothpaste tablets? I bought some at a local outdoors store here the other day. 60 tablets in the original packaging weighs 1.6 oz.

[Adam Wallace]

This thread is funny, tooth paste of whatever brand dries over night in my sink

[Kristin Fiebelkorn]

Well, I had been meaning to try making some of these since reading about them in Mike's book, and after reading this, I just had to go ahead and do it. I got an old half-used tube of Colgate Total and a travel/sample of Sensodyne Pronamel, put some wax paper on a plate, and went for it, making little ropes.

The Colgate is sort of spready for some reason. The Sensodyne looks like it starts drier. I'm trying the ambient air technique (not impatient) – we'll see which one dries first.

An added and unanticipated benefit – my kitchen (and indeed, my entire living room and den) now smells minty fresh!!! :D

[Kristin Fiebelkorn]

In case anyone was wondering…

Sensodyne Pronamel dried up in less than 24 hours (mostly dry by 12 hours). By 48 hours I could easily pick the ropes up like sturdy little sticks (they actually curled up a bit and separated from the wax paper on their own). At 48 hours, the Colgate Total was still sticky and wasn't dry enough to do anything with (though it was drying some). Note that, unlike Mike Clelland, I do NOT live in Idaho at an altitude of 6100 feet…

Might be useful info if someone wants to make these in a hurry for an upcoming trip, doesn't live in Idaho, and doesn't have a dehydrator – Sensodyne, at least the Pronamel, seems to be very fast to dry in air.

If you were NOT wondering, well… back to more gear talk and recipes… :D

[Harald Hope]

REI pill case, with a week, at least, of toothpaste, undried, about 12 gm total.

From what I see at campsites, people tend to use massively way far too much toothpaste, I brought for example I think about 3x give or take more than I needed, but I am bad at eying it out, I'd estimate I came back with 10 days leftover.

I would say that 10gm toothpaste+pill case total really makes me want to look elsewhere for weight savings, heh heh.

That's fresh, paste, not dried, no bother, works fine.

I can probably save a bit, but not much, on my toothbrush, but again, I've used short handled ones, and I'm happy to pay the multigram penalty of a longer handle.

The baking soda pluses and minuses are good info, I wasn't aware of the unbuffered abrasive part of the matter, but as a multi-use, certainly sounds like a bit of that wouldn't hurt to have along.

But whatever you do, don't bring those mini tubes, they are heavy and it's hard to get all the toothpaste out, nearly impossible I'd say, so you're always carrying a certain amount that will never get used. Much nicer just dipping the brush into the paste, easy to see how little you need that way too.

I think I'll worry about 1/2 pounds / pounds on various items before worrying about this. If I used a small ziplock and the paste (but I don't like trusting zips for liquids in general, too messy if they fail), we'd be talking here about 5, 6 grams tops for a week plus.

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