Smile-breaks
I Never Fall for Those Advertising Ploys
I can’t believe it. Here I am, scouring the racks of enticingly packaged toothbrushes, looking for one of those neat tooth-hugging toothbrushes. My worst fear is that it’s been discontinued. Just when you get addicted to a certain style of toothbrush, it’s discontinued and you have to find a new style that’s different, but kind’a the same.
It sure isn’t easy, looking through endless rows of toothbrushes at the hard bristled, medium bristled, soft bristled; at the stable heads, flexible heads, tiny heads; at the multi-bristled, staggered bristled, and the blue and white bristled. It isn’t easy finding a new toothbrush with just the right accessories for your tooth type.
This is all commercial hogwash of course. A toothbrush is a toothbrush. Soft, medium or hard bristled. That’s all you need. No one needs a toothbrush that hugs your teeth. That’s what friends are for!
Hugging, I mean – not tooth hugging.
When I got this toothbrush last year with its astonishing tooth-hugging claims on the back of the package, I laughed. Wow! Who would buy a toothbrush that “flexes in to hug and get between the teeth?”
I only bought it because it was purple and no one else at our house had a purple toothbrush and the bristles were soft and my dentist said I should use a soft-bristled brush.
She didn’t say anything about hugging, and my guy I live with was waiting out in the car, so I just grabbed that purple toothbrush with the soft bristles, paid for it and ran out to the car.
Little did I know I had just purchased an affectionate toothbrush with a flexible head that was plotting to hug my teeth at the first opportunity.
It was a nice toothbrush, though, and the tooth-hugging was an interesting way to start the day, but when those tooth-hugging bristles wore out I bought an Oral-B toothbrush without the tooth-hugging option. The color was right; the bristles were soft and I never fall for those advertising ploys.
When the Oral B wore out I bought another toothbrush. I forget what brand it was, but somewhere around the second week, I realized something wasn’t quite right. My teeth felt slightly injured – neglected, you might say - after their morning brushings.
The bristles were supposed to be soft, but they didn’t feel soft. They felt stiff as they went up and down my teeth. I ran my fingers along the bristles of my new toothbrush. Then I ran my fingers along the bristles of my traveling toothbrush – much softer. I must’ve accidentally pulled a hard-bristled brush off the rack.
At that moment, I suddenly remembered those soft tender bristles that reached around and hugged my teeth so long ago – well, a year ago.
That was kind of a nice toothbrush. Since I have to get a new toothbrush, why not get one of those? At least the bristles were good and soft. I wonder if they still have them?
I couldn’t remember the brand or the model, but I headed down to Longs and that’s how I ended up here, in front of the toothbrush racks, looking high and low for a tooth-hugging toothbrush.
I’ll never remember the brand… Colgate! That’s it! I ran down the aisle to the Colgate section and scanned the packages, looking for… a Navigator! A gen-u-ine tooth-hugging Navigator toothbrush! Wow! My lucky day!
Come to think of it, I’ll bet my son’s teeth would enjoy some early morning hugging. I got two of them.
Advertising. Packaging. Gimmicks. I still can’t believe I fell for it. I can’t believe I went to the store and just had to find a Colgate Navigator tooth-hugging toothbrush. But my teeth are happier than they’ve been in months and as the saying goes, if the teeth are happy, the soul is smiling.
So if you’re lookin’ for love – or a toothbrush - I highly recommend…