this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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me_irl
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PSA: that's way too much toothpaste
I don't think too much toothpaste will hurt you or anything, but you could get away with 1/2 to 1/3 of what's pictured and it will clean exactly the same. Big Toothpaste wants you to use a lot to boost sales, but you only need a pea-sized dollop.
It will save you money, provided you're not dumping it all in the sink like OP the clumsy fool (Love ya OP, we've all been there)
I also found out I was taught to brush my teeth incorrectly.
Apparently you are supposed to use mouthwash, then floss, then brush, then let the toothpaste sit on your teeth for ten minutes instead of rinsing immediately.
Funny, I had heard floss then mouthwash because the flossing opens up more space for the mouthwash to get into.
But I think the chief thing dentists recommend is toothpaste last and not to rinse.
Either way, if you're doing all three then you're ahead of 90% of tooth owners
i heard mouthwash wasn’t even good for your teeth, you floss, swish and then brush.
My hygienist is very against mouthwash because it kills the good germs. But yeah I also just learned that you floss first when I was always taught to floss last. Doesn't make sense to go last I should've figured that one out.
I was told to floss last in order to get the toothpaste from brushing in between the teeth
But toothpaste staying in teeth is good, hence why it's also recommended not to rinse after brushing
So is that also after I throw up from the toothpaste on my teeth? When do I rinse my mouth after barfing?
Sorry, I'm an American and you hate those, so I'm not sure any advice I give you would be taken in good faith.
Nope. Nothing an American says matters to anyone.
I don't think you actually believe that.
If you're a psychopath. Who doesn't rinse?
Turns out the stuff like cavity protection and everything needs to sit there on your teeth for a bit to actually work
They've steadily been making the hole bigger too.
There's a story I've heard about that which drives me nuts. It might be apocryphal, but it does sound believable.
When I was pursuing a degree in IT, I had to take a Business 101 class for reasons I never quite understood. The instructor launches into this story about a guy who goes to a big toothpaste company - Crest or Colgate probably, but the who of it doesn't really matter.
This guy comes in with a pitch, he says that he's got an idea that's guaranteed to increase their revenue by 25% but he won't share it with them unless he's given an arbitrarily large sum of money. It must have been convincing because they agree to hear him out.
So they pay him out and he tells them the idea: make the nozzle on the toothpaste 25% larger.
My instructor asked what lesson we learned from the story. "You can make a bundle by helping corporations cheat their consumers," was not marked as correct, but I maintain that's the chief lesson.
I don't see what other lesson the instructor was trying to teach. Maybe "Get a guarantee you'll get paid before you help corporations cheat their customers"? The engineer who invented SMS learned that the hard way.
I'm not sure if it's Mandela effect or what, but I could swear it literally used to be written on the tube to use "a pea sized amount"