Hey everyone! A few weeks ago, I had the honor of attending a small bloggers' conference with Colgate. It's not your run-of-the-mill beauty event so I was pretty surprised at how engaged everyone was. You'd expect beauty bloggers not to care about oral health (not to the point of nastiness, you nasty!) but it was amusing to see the same level of over-analysis of makeup products, ingredients and application techniques being applied to oral products, ingredients and application techniques.
Though oral health seems like a no-brainer, here's 4 surprising things I learned from the Colgate forum:
- Gums are not glued to your teeth. You may have been noticing super slim bristle innovations in TV advertisements. I didn't really care about those marketing keywords before but they apparently serve a purpose: a lot of dirt gets shoved under your gums. Your oral health greatly benefits from a brush that can comfortably clean those spaces, so I'm pretty excited to try this charcoal toothbrush with 0.01mm bristles. I used to think my dentist was a sadist by using this hook tool to carve out my gum line during prophylaxis, but apparently, homegirl was only looking out for me!
- You're not supposed to rinse with water after brushing your teeth. This was crazy! I know it's very commonplace for us Filipinos to wash our mouths out with water after brushing our teeth. People are paranoid about eating traces of toothpaste, I guess. But did you know you're actually spitting out precious fluoride in the process? The purpose of brushing is to manually sweep off gunk AND rub anti-cavity fluoride onto your teeth. By rinsing, you nullify the second purpose of brushing. There's no toxicity to consuming trace amounts of toothpaste, so don't stress about it. (EDIT: Commenters are freaking out over this and I'd like to clarify- don't rinse BUT SPIT THE FOAM OUT!)
- Brush each tooth once in a 45° angle, starting from the gumline, scooping outwards, inside and outside. This one's even crazier, and it's going to be really hard to do. When we brush with an up and down or side-to-side motion, we routinely damage the tooth enamel. For hygienic purposes, the above mentioned strategy is sufficient and least damages our teeth. You can start on the incisors (the bunny teeth!) and feel your way towards the wisdom teeth. Normal adults have 8 teeth on each side of each jaw, but I have only 6. I've one set of bicuspids/premolars removed for braces, and my widsom teeth removed due to overcrowding.
The first photo clearly shows how 45° makes your brush look like. Photo via identalhub.com - Your canines are the cornerstones of your smile. After all that serious talk, LET'S GET SUPERFICIAL FOR A MOMENT HERE. Do you know why bungal (toothless) people have a strange smile? It's 'cause they have no canines. AND APPARENTLY, canines form much of your face shape. Is that why vampires are so attractive? Hahaha. But seriously! Think about it.
I think no matter what new-fangled innovation people come up with, the biggest factor in determining your oral health is your attitude and commitment to habits. The perfect 45° is not going to matter if you only brush twice a week without even flossing- EGAD! If you're serious about hygiene and health, have good genes and are close to first-born, you can expect to grow old with your original set of teeth :D
