Brush your teeth with soap !

[sanjuro_ronin]

http://chealth.canoe.ca/columns.asp?columnistid=6&articleid=31590&relation_id=3224

Brushing your teeth with soap Jan. 22, 2011
Written by: DR. GIFFORD-JONES, Special to QMI Agency

Do you enjoy paying dental bills? Or having dentists scraping plaque from your teeth? If it's a pleasure, there's no need to read this column. But I've never enjoyed these regular checkups. Now there's a way to retire dentists, prevent cavities, protect gums and rid teeth of plaque, using cheap, ordinary soap.

My first reaction when I read this report was, "Come on, Dr Judd, you must be kidding! Who would ever brush their teeth with soap?" But Dr. Gerald F. Judd is no nut. He's a retired Emeritus Professor of chemistry at Purdue University.


I admire people who have the intestinal fortitude to question well-established theories that may be wrong. Besides, I discovered he and I both believe dentists are wrong on another issue.

Dr. Judd reports that acid destroys enamel and that cavities would vanish if people rinsed acids from their mouths quickly. Tap water is all that's needed to do the job.

He also claims that bacteria cannot damage the tooth's hard outer enamel that is composed of calcium hydroxy phosphate. The proof is that bones and teeth are resistant to earth-bound organisms. After all, we've all seen pictures of skeletons that have been unearthed after hundreds of years with teeth still intact.

But why use soap to clean teeth? Judd says glycerine is present in all toothpastes and it's so sticky that it requires 27 washes to clean it off. This means that teeth remain coated with a film and cannot rebuild enamel. And if they're not clean, adenosine diphosphatase cannot provide phosphate to enamel.

His next point is what I wanted to hear. Brushing with soap destroys bacteria and viruses. No professor at The Harvard Medical School told me about that. Or that brushing with ordinary bar soap not only cleans teeth but also removes hard plaque stuck to the bottom of enamel.

Removing plaque from teeth is vital as it invades gums, separating them from teeth. This sets the stage for gingivitis, poorly anchored teeth and eventually possible loss of teeth. It's shocking that 25% of North Americans over age 43, and 42% of those over 65 years of age, have no teeth!

Dr. Judd also believes that the fluoridation of water and the use of fluoride toothpaste is a useless, dangerous biological poison. He says calcium fluoride seeps into enamel, making it weak and brittle, destroying 83 enzymes along with adenosine diphosphatase.

I couldn't agree more. Look at the warning on fluoride toothpaste. Parents are told to watch children under six years of age while they brush their teeth. To be safe, only a tiny amount of toothpaste is used, and none should be swallowed. That should tell you something! In 1974, a three-year old child had fluoride gel placed on his teeth. The hygienist handed him a glass of water but rather than rising out his mouth, he drank it. A few hours later, he was dead.

If fluoride toothpaste is the answer to dental decay, why is it that 98% of Europe is fluoride-free? Sweden, Germany, Norway, Holland, Denmark and France stopped using fluoridation 29 years ago. These are not backward, depressed nations.

The sole argument for fluoridation is that it reduces tooth decay. But several studies involving as many as 480,000 children found no beneficial evidence between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities.

Dr. Hardy Limeback, Professor of Dentistry at the University of Toronto, says children under three should never use fluoridated toothpaste or drink fluoridated water, and mothers should never use Toronto tap water to prepare baby formula.

Will I practice what I've preached in this column? You bet, as I'm curious to know whether I can say goodbye to the dental hygienist who scrapes plaque off my teeth, not to mention the cost. The test will take three months and I'll report the result.

No doubt all hell from the dental profession will descend on me. This doesn't worry me. What does is that my dentist will read this column and keep a big rusty drill handy for my next appointment.

[David Jamieson]

I'm switching!

Dentists are a shady lot as they sit outside of the universal healthcare system.

the last one I went to was a real piece of work. Loved to throw around dental medical terms as if they meant squat to me and to top it off, he outright tells me that he was an engineer, but couldn't make a good living so he became a dentist. His equipment was outmoded and his staff clearly hated him.

Anyway, this guy is representative of the mentality of many a dentist.

I believe toothpaste is not good due to it's abrasiveness and I know for a fact mouthwash is one of the worst things you can consistently use as it weakens your gums.

Who wants to market pleasantly flavoured dentist bar soap for teeth?

[sanjuro_ronin]

I'm switching!

Dentists are a shady lot as they sit outside of the universal healthcare system.

the last one I went to was a real piece of work. Loved to throw around dental medical terms as if they meant squat to me and to top it off, he outright tells me that he was an engineer, but couldn't make a good living so he became a dentist. His equipment was outmoded and his staff clearly hated him.

Anyway, this guy is representative of the mentality of many a dentist.

I believe toothpaste is not good due to it's abrasiveness and I know for a fact mouthwash is one of the worst things you can consistently use as it weakens your gums.

Who wants to market pleasantly flavoured dentist bar soap for teeth?

Hmmm, flavoured soap...you might have something there !!

[David Jamieson]

Hmmm, flavoured soap...you might have something there !!

well, they used to make gum that tasted like soap. so, it might work...
remember that gum, little purple horrid things called... um.. *googles*..ah yes "Thrills"

lol

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0a/Thrills.jpg

just friggin awful...anyway, apparently it's gonna come down to adding rosewater!

[mickey]

Greetings,

I have done this and soap works infinitely better than any toothpaste out there. My teeth feels like they were treated by a professional using some brand new technology. No kidding.

I shared what I was doing with my family. They thought I was seriously low on funds and bought me toothpaste and mouthwash.

Now, I grew up using a combination of toothpaste and Arm&Hammer baking soda (or just baking soda alone) long before such a combination was commercially available. This worked so well that when I went to see a dentist, the technician asked where I was from because my teeth were in unsually good health. So, coming from this experience, and sharing that brushing with soap is good then, BRUSHING WITH SOAP IS GOOD!!!!

mickey

[sanjuro_ronin]

What kind of soap?

[Jimbo]

All types of important services are being cut back in San Diego, such as some police, fire department, trash pickup, etc., etc., because the city says it's broke. But yet the city accepted about a $3.5 million grant to fluoridate our water for the next few years. :mad: Saying that it's for children's dental health sounds to me like a lot of bunk. Fluoride is a dangerous additive with little to no benefits to dental health. It all comes down to the $$. Because they sneaked it through without a vote, even though many have been opposed to it.

Hmm, I may have to look into using soap for brushing.

[Lucas]

im 31 i went to the dentist last year and havnt been since i was 13. i wanted to have a wisdom tooth removed that was coming in at an angle i didnt like. i had zero cavities, so the dental assistant asked me when i was at the dentist last and i told her, she asked what i do to take care of my teeth i told her i dont brush every single day and i dont use tootpaste or mouthwash. they thought i was kind of off, but i said hey, the proof is in front of your face. i dont need to conform to what the dental profession wants me to do so that they can continue to have more patients.

hello, its dentists telling you to use products that brings you back in over and over to give them money. its largely a scam.

[Syn7]

i wish i could get away without brushing... my teeth arent too bad but not good either... i had a few cavities as a youth and they are forever a problem... i also lost one and chipped two teeth in three different fights... at the time it was a major pain... ima poster child for mouthguards... people who say they dont want or need them make me cringe coz i know the consequences personally...

hygiene is an interesting topic... everyone is different... i have this friend that sweats like a motherfukcer, he carries deoderant around... me, i dont even wear deorderant... a shower is enough for me... some people just smell more than others... i made a point of asking people and nobody had any complaints, didnt even believe me when i said i didnt wear that stuff... but its pretty normal apparently... i heard theres a good chunk of people that dont shower everyday either... now i may miss a weekend shower if all i did was lay on my couch for 30 hours of lazy, but otherwise my job and my hobbies makes me have little choice...

im curious as to how to use soap without being grossed out...


and DJ, i hear ya man, that gum is disgusting... does anyone actually like that taste???

[18elders]

are we talking anti bacterial liquid soap or irish spring bar soap?

I never brushed with soap but i had my mouth washed out with soap as a kid for using bad words. My brothers name is chuck, i would call him something else!!

[mickey]

Hi,

You can use any kind of hand soap really. They are all basically the same. I used Ivory and even Octagon which I really like because it is simply an all purpose soap that has stood the test of time. I have even used shea butter soap.

mickey

[Syn7]

are we talking anti bacterial liquid soap or irish spring bar soap?

I never brushed with soap but i had my mouth washed out with soap as a kid for using bad words. My brothers name is chuck, i would call him something else!!

that seems unfair... my lil sis said the same thing trying to say truck... but she was just corrected, not punished... she dunno no better...

[18elders]

I wasn't saying his name wrong, i would call him chucky ****y!

[mickey]

Greetings,

There are products available that surpass my spartan approach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7-AWuOuWyA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJ-Swa_Dzw



mickey

[mickey]

Hi,

I knew this Judd guy rang a bell with me. He wrote a book and he was the reason why I tried using soap to brush my teeth.

http://www.leviticus11.com/goodt.htm

mickey

[Lucas]

several people prefer dove unscented over many other types of bar soap.

[GeneChing]

How Darkie, now Darlie, became East Asia’s favourite toothpaste despite its blackface branding (https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/2176817/how-darkie-now-darlie-became-east-asias-favourite)
Taking its branding from the image of performers such as Al Jolson, Darkie was launched in the 1930s, a time when racial discrimination was rife
The name was changed to Darlie in 1989 to reflect public opinion in the West
PUBLISHED : Monday, 10 December, 2018, 1:02am
UPDATED : Monday, 10 December, 2018, 1:31am
Christopher DeWolf

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2018/12/08/dfc6fd8c-f38c-11e8-bbe8-afaa0960a632_1280x720_183135.jpg?itok=-SqUOVfj

When US television host Megyn Kelly defended blackface Halloween costumes on her new daytime NBC show, the backlash was swift and strong. She was fired within a week. For many, blackface is a reminder of how black people around the world have been oppressed and marginalised for centuries.

You don’t need to look far to find examples. Walk into any supermarket in Hong Kong, Bangkok or Shanghai – although it may not be obvious at first, one of the Asia’s bestselling brands of toothpaste has deep roots in blackface.

In a sea of products with slick packaging designed to evoke minty freshness, Darlie stands out on the shelves for its vaguely retro branding, marked by a black-and-white logo of a man wearing a top hat and a broad smile – the Darlie Man, as he is officially known.

It’s the bestselling toothpaste in China, and in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, “we are either in first or second place for the sale of toothpaste, and our market share ranges from 10 to 30 per cent in these markets”, says David Chiu, regional marketing director for Darlie.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbZ23uskVtk

So far, so innocuous. But if you look closely at the box you’ll notice something unusual: Darlie’s Chinese name translates as “black person toothpaste”. It’s a remnant of a time not too long ago when Darlie was known in English as Darkie, and the Darlie Man was a grinning blackface minstrel.

Kelley Loper, director of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Comparative and Public Law, remembers visiting Taiwan in the 1990s and coming across some boxes of Darkie in a local grocery store.

“I remember being really shocked and offended,” she says. “But then I discussed it with friends in Taiwan and they didn’t understand what the problem was.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyXS9qTsb3U

So how did a toothpaste with a name and logo that many consider to be deeply, irredeemably offensive become so popular in Asia? And what does its continued success say about the state of racism and race relations today?

To answer those questions, you need to go back 85 years to Shanghai, where the Niem family established the Hawley & Hazel Chemical Company. One of its products was a toothpaste that promised to give its users dazzlingly white teeth.

Its branding played on the imagery of performers such as Al Jolson, who painted their faces black to perform in minstrel shows that ridiculed people of African descent.

“Darkie” was a racial slur used against African-Americans in the Jim Crow era, when large parts of the United States were governed by apartheid-style racial segregation. “It doesn’t have the same implications as the N-word, but it’s not far off,” says Barry Sautman, a visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who specialises in ethnicity in China and Africa-China relations.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/08/b3270456-f38d-11e8-bbe8-afaa0960a632_972x_183135.JPG
Al Jonson in a still from The Jazz Singer (1927). Photo: Alamy

“Blackface is part of a history of dehumanisation, of denied citizenship, and of efforts to excuse and justify state violence,” wrote American race studies professor David Leonard in a 2012 essay.

Because blackface depicts people of African descent as less than human, it helped justify horrific acts such as lynchings, and Leonard says it continues to serve as a justification for segregation and mass incarceration.

There have historically been Africans in East Asia, and Sautman says he doesn’t see much of a history of anti-black sentiment in China. But Asia nonetheless imported Western ideas of race in the early 20th century, which placed black people at the bottom of the hierarchy.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/08/f79763c0-f38c-11e8-bbe8-afaa0960a632_972x_183135.jpg
Vintage advertising for Darkie. Photo: Alamy

“Chinese people basically had no conception of black people other than what they imported from the West,” he says. “This is still often the case in terms of how Chinese think about Africa and Africans.”

Blackface characters had one thing in common: dazzling white teeth. “Because their skin was so dark, their teeth looked really white – so people associated them with white teeth,” says Michele Fan, a Hong Kong-born marketing strategist now based in the United States.

In a decade when blackface imagery was widespread, it’s easy to see how Hawley & Hazel got its inspiration for the Darkie brand.


While Darlie’s image is now a racially ambiguous man, its Chinese name is a reminder that it has not made a complete break from its previous racist branding PHYLLIS CHEUNG, DIRECTOR OF ANTI-DISCRIMINATION GROUP HONG KONG UNISON
The Niem family moved the business from Shanghai to Taipei in 1949, after the communist victory, and then to Hong Kong in 1973. Darkie continued to enjoy success throughout Asia, earning a 75 per cent market share in Taiwan and 50 per cent in Singapore, which drew the attention of Colgate-Palmolive, the brand’s largest competitor. In 1985, the New York-based multinational struck a deal to acquire 50 per cent of Hawley & Hazel.

It was a savvy business move, earning Colgate a near-monopoly in Asian markets, but from the beginning the company was aware of the political implications of owning a brand named Darkie. When word spread to the United States of Colgate’s acquisition, American racial justice groups and Democratic politicians began lobbying for a boycott. Even Colgate’s then-CEO, Reuben Mark, acknowledged the brand was racist. “It’s just plain wrong,” he said in 1989. “It’s just offensive. The morally right thing dictated that we must change.”

But Colgate was loath to harm a brand that was a proven success, so its first steps towards change were tentative. In 1987, it ran a six-month test in Singapore by changing Darkie’s name to Dakkie, without removing the blackface logo. Two years later, the company settled on the name Darlie, and it redrew the logo to represent today’s more racially ambiguous Darlie Man.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/08/c1560cca-f38d-11e8-bbe8-afaa0960a632_972x_183135.JPG
The original packaging of Darkie, sold in China and other Asian countries since the early 1930s. Photo: Alamy

One thing didn’t change, though: the brand’s Chinese name. As a 1990 Cantonese-language television commercial made clear: “Black Person Toothpaste is still Black Person Toothpaste.”

The controversy receded and Darlie continued to thrive, rolling out green tea and jasmine-flavoured toothpaste that further cemented its success in Asian markets.

“I think where it’s really successful and why it’s successful is because of the legacy and the heritage of the brand,” says Singapore-based brand consultant Martin Roll. “If you take a step back and look at a modern retail shelf, it stands out in terms of its logo, its colour, its name, its entire appearance. It comes across with a completely different identity.”

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/08/ed008126-f38c-11e8-bbe8-afaa0960a632_972x_183135.jpeg
A Darkie advertisement in China in 1948.

Michele Fan grew up using Darlie and, although she remembers finding its name a bit strange, she says it was simply part of Hong Kong’s retail landscape. “It’s something everyone uses,” she says.

The rebranding seems to have mostly succeeded in removing anything overtly offensive about the toothpaste. Caribbean-American researcher Darah Phillip lived in Hong Kong for two years, but she never noticed anything amiss about Darlie. “I’m glad they changed the logo to be more [politically correct],” she says.

Others are less sanguine. When asked about Darlie, members of the Hong Kong African Association say they are disappointed in the brand.

“My simple answer is ignorance,” says Eboh Manuel Chinuzo, who laments that many Hongkongers are oblivious to anti-black racism, whether on a global level or in Hong Kong, whose small African community deals with issues such as housing discrimination.

Another member of the association, Ezeakunne Sylvester, says Darlie’s history still stings. “A white man in blackface means someone with a bad heart,” he says. “Every bad thing is black but good ones are white. That is the racism we blacks are facing.”

Phyllis Cheung, director of anti-discrimination group Hong Kong Unison, says that while Darlie’s Chinese name is not intrinsically offensive, it still contains the seeds of racial stereotyping.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/12/08/ed008126-f38c-11e8-bbe8-afaa0960a632_972x_183135.jpeg
A vintage Darkie ad.

“Hong Kong people may not be aware of Darlie’s old image and what it means, since they may not know much about the history of slavery and violence against black people, how offensive blackface is, the pain all this has caused, and the systemic oppression black people are still facing,” she says.

“While Darlie’s image is now a racially ambiguous man, its Chinese name is a reminder that it has not made a complete break from its previous racist branding.”

Darlie’s Chiu acknowledges that the toothpaste’s original branding was “derogatory”, but he says it has moved on from that history. “There has been no change to the Chinese name as Chinese consumers have told us our brand is perceived as trustworthy, international, modern and premium,” he says.

“The direct translations of the Chinese brand name to English terms ‘Black Man’ or ‘Black Person’ are not the best representation of our intent, and they may lead towards a different connotation due to cultural differences.”

With its troublesome past well hidden, don’t expect Darlie to change any time soon. “We are very proud and thankful that the consumers recognise Darlie and like our product,” says Chiu. “We focus not only on delivering the best possible products to our consumers, but also on inspiring them to express their best selves with a bright white smile, whenever and wherever they are.”

I'm so impressed that we have two toothpaste-related threads: OT: Brushing your teeth (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?12362-OT-Brushing-your-teeth) & Brush your teeth with soap ! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?59599-Brush-your-teeth-with-soap-!)