15 Different Uses for Toothpaste Other Than Brushing Your Teeth

15 Different Uses for Toothpaste Other Than Brushing Your Teeth

          Normally, toothpaste is purchased and used for one thing: brushing your teeth. However, there are many other ways that you can use toothpaste without it even touching the toothbrush! Below we discuss fifteen different uses for toothpaste. 

1.     Spider Bites. As many of us know through unfortunate experience, spider bites normally swell and itch badly with little you can do to relieve the symptoms. The fluoride found in toothpaste tends to calm the itching and can help reduce the swelling if applied to the bite.  

2.     Polishing Silver Jewelry and Diamonds. Toothpaste will help clean gunk off of silver jewelry and diamonds and leave them with a brilliant shine, much like it does with your teeth. You can wipe away any toothpaste residue with a damp cloth and your jewelry will be bright and shiny.

 

3.     Burns. When you burn yourself, there is a lasting “hot” feeling in your skin that seems to be relieved temporarily with cold water. Applying toothpaste to the burn will help remove some of the heat and make the pain easier to bear.

 

4.     Remove the Smell from Baby Bottles. Many parents can agree that there is a foul smell from milk and formula that left over in baby bottles that sometimes doesn’t go away by washing it with soap and water. Wash the bottles with a toothpaste-water mixture, and the odor will be gone quickly.

 

5.     Acne. Toothpaste goes near our faces every day when we brush our teeth, but many of us wouldn’t think to put toothpaste on our faces. When applied to pimples, toothpaste can help dry out the area and decrease redness and swelling. Be careful, however, because using too much toothpaste or leaving it on the pimple for too long can cause skin irritation.

 

6.     Keep Diving Goggles from Fogging. While diving or swimming and using goggles, the insides of the goggles tend to fog up and collect moisture which inhibits good visibility. If you rub toothpaste on the inside surface of the goggles and then rinse it off, it will keep the goggles from fogging up to much while you’re trying to have fun in the water.

 

7.     For Your Nails. When using nail polish often, it starts to leave a yellow tint or staining on the fingernails that is unpleasant and is often covered up with more nail polish. By using toothpaste, you can buff away those stains much like toothpaste helps remove yellow staining on teeth.

 

8.     Cleaning of Piano Keys. The keys of a piano can get dirty easily when they are played often, which takes away from the class and elegance of a piano. By rubbing the keys with a toothpaste and water mixture and then buffing with a cloth, the keys will shine.

 

9.     Remove Children’s Drawings on Walls. When it gets too quiet in the house, most parents suspect that their child is up to something and that something can sometimes be large murals of crayon on the walls. These drawings can be easily removed by the abrasive character of toothpaste. However, it is important to test a small patch of the wall before trying to clean the entire work of art, just in case the paint on the walls is sensitive to abrasive substances.

 

10.      For DVD/CD Scratches. It is incredibly frustrating when you go to put a DVD in a player and the audio or picture skips and distorts because there is a small scratch on the playing surface. Toothpaste can help us with this situation as well. Very gently rub toothpaste onto the playing surface, then rinse and buff with a soft cloth. The abrasive characteristic of toothpaste helps even out the playing surface of the disc. Be careful, however, because too much of this abrasiveness can make it worse.

 

11.  Hair Strengthening. You can rub gel toothpaste in your hair to enhance  its strength. Also, toothpaste has similar properties to hair gel, and when you need a strong hold you can apply the toothpaste into your hair and style it the way you want.

 

12.      Remove Strong Food Smells from Hands. When cooking with garlic or fish, you will notice that a distinct strong smell lingers on the fingers, and often for a lot longer than we want it to. Gel toothpaste, when applied to the fingers, penetrates deep into the skin and removes those unpleasant smells from your fingers.

 

13.      Polishing shoes. Scuffing of shoes is something that is nearly impossible to avoid, unless you never wear them that is. Working especially well on leather shoes, rubbing toothpaste on the shoes and buffing off with a soft cloth can remove scuffs and polish shoes so that they look brand new.

14.      Remove Burn Spots on a Clothing Iron. When we use our clothing irons, after some time small dark circle spots become noticeable on the heated surface, which are burns from the excessive heat the iron gives off. Scrub the heated surface (not while the iron is hot, of course) with toothpaste and water. This will wipe those burn spots away and increase the lifespan of your iron.

 

15.      Caulking Over Nail Holes in the Wall. If you’ve got holes in the wall from a picture nail (or any other type of nail for that matter) you can use toothpaste to fill it up. The easiest is by using white toothpaste on white walls. If you have colored walls though, you can mix the toothpaste with food coloring or eye shadow to match the color. Apply the toothpaste to the hole and allow to dry, and then use a flat object like a credit card to go over it and smooth it down. 

Although there are many different uses for toothpaste, the most important use for toothpaste is for brushing your teeth. Dental check-ups with the Mina Levi DDS Dentist San Francisco are very important to maintain healthy teeth and gums. For more information, visit Mina Levi on the web at www.minalevidds.com or call us at (415) 513-5066.