2 Amazing Uses For Toothpaste That You Never Knew Existed

Posted on: 5 January 2015

Did you know that tube of toothpaste sitting in your medicine cabinet can now do more than just help scrub out last night's dinner? It's one of the most underrated substances on earth! Did you also know it can even act as a potential substitute for blu-tack to keep posters stuck to your wall without damaging paintwork?

If you are wondering how toothpaste could further save you and your family money down the road, below are just a couple of other magic tricks it can perform.

CD Scratch Repair

Who knew that one day toothpaste could be used to patch up your old CDs and vinyl scratched from years of continuous use? Toothpaste works wonders to sand down all those scratches and imperfections on a CD's polycarbonate plastic layer surface. Doing this will prevent the CD from deflecting the player's laser beam while it plays.

Before applying the following method, you must first find a non gel-based toothpaste, as gel-based ones can cause further scratching as well as make more of a mess to clean up later.

  1. Wash away all dust or fingerprint markings from CD's surface.
  2. Smear a dab of toothpaste onto one end of a cotton swab.
  3. Rub the toothpaste in gently to the scratched areas with the same motion you would use for buffing a car; taking care not to rub too aggressively and erode more surface coating than needed.
  4. Wipe down using any soft cloth beginning from the CD's centre then gradually moving towards its edges.

Your player's laser beam should now read the newly repaired disc without any problems.

Weather Prediction

A new form of toothpaste called 'Tastes Like Rain' has been in development by engineers at MIT. Through running special software, they connected a toothpaste dispenser to a Linux terminal and compared present day and past temperatures in order to make the toothpaste forecast weather conditions. The system uses indicators represented by different types of flavours and patterns to tell the user what conditions are like outside; each one corresponding to a different type of weather:

  • Cold days are represented by a mint flavour.
  • Cinnamon flavoured paste indicates a hot day.
  • Striped patterned toothpaste means the user should expect rain.

This invention will be made available for purchase at a retail level once the team has been able to simplify the existing technology to the point it can be easily run on a low-cell battery.

If a little bit of toothpaste can do all that, imagine what it can do to teeth! Check out dentists such as Belconnen Dental Centre for more information. 

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