Making your toothpaste lighter? Yep, today I’ll be showing you how you can even trim weight on your toothpaste. I’ll admit this technique sounded silly to me when I first heard about it, but if you’re serious about trimming ounces for lightweight backpacking, then toothpaste dots might be for you.
In my ongoing quest to make my backpacking dopp kit even lighter, I decided to test out a technique that a buddy of mine used on a camping trip. Between Seth’s experience and reading about toothpaste dots in Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips by Mike Clelland, I set out to make my own.
Toothpaste Dots
The gist of creating toothpaste dots is to first select a toothpaste that isn’t a gel. If you try to use a gel, you’ll get globs not dots. Plus, gel toothpaste never fully cures like the paste will. For my experiments, I used Sensodyne Pronamel (Paste) and Crest 3D White (Gel). To create toothpaste dots, you want to squeeze out a tiny dot the size of a chocolate chip. Next, use tin foil to squeeze your toothpaste on to while it’s drying out. The dots will be very easy to remove from the tin foil and I let mine sit for about a week before removing them. A hint is to write the date you started with a sharpie, just in case the days blend together for you, like they do for me. The last step is to remove the dots from the tin foil and drop them into a small ziploc, or my preference, ez-dose pill pouches. The ez-dose pill pouches are great to have around for a variety of reasons. I also use them to store Asprin and Advil within my backpacking minikit.
Before closing up the bag with your new toothpaste dots, sprinkle a little baking soda in so they don’t stick together. That’s all there is to it! You can now simply take out a toothpaste dot, toss it in your mouth, chew it a little bit and start brushing. You have already cut down your toothbrush to save weight, right?
Just so you have a general idea, the ez-dose pill pouch shown here with 10 toothpaste dots, weighs just .2 ounces. Much lighter than the 1/2 ounce plus weight of a well used tube of travel toothpaste. Another benefit with toothpaste dots is that you know exactly how much toothpaste you have.
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ZSE
What do you think of toothpaste dots?
January 4th, 2014 at 11:54 pm
nice stuff, I find I can leave out tooth paste altogether and just use a wet brush, has worked for a while, at least no one has run away (yet) , or they’re just being kind!
January 5th, 2014 at 2:49 am
Now that’s travelling really light!!… Any ideas on lightening the load on shower gel/shampoo?
January 11th, 2014 at 5:02 am
Great idea! Might have to give this a go…
January 11th, 2014 at 4:19 pm
I was looking through your blog with my 5 yr old on my lap and when he saw this he said cool can we do that with our toothpaste? So even though we aren’t even leaving the house I will know be making toothpaste dots. lol
January 13th, 2014 at 6:01 pm
Thank you Edthusiast, for stopping by. We appreciate your feedback. Let us know what you would like to hear about. Thanks for joining the ZSE troop.Stay tuned for more!
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January 11th, 2014 at 6:59 pm
Toothpaste dots? Well, maybe I’m old fashioned, but there’s always toothpowder.
January 12th, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Very interesting!
January 12th, 2014 at 9:26 pm
Oh yes, no more split toothpaste tubes, love it!
January 13th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
We appreciate your feedback. Let us know what you would like to hear about. Thanks for joining the ZSE troop.Stay tuned for more!
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ZSE
January 14th, 2014 at 3:08 am
Unique idea you got here and great reviews on the backpack and water bottle! Best of luck! Thank you for the follow 🙂
January 15th, 2014 at 3:14 pm
That’s clever. I never would have thought of it, but once you say it it’s obvious.
January 17th, 2014 at 7:09 pm
[…] Toothpaste Dots – No liquid, no mess – just fresh clean […]
January 19th, 2014 at 8:02 am
Thanks for liking my poem. After checking you out, it’s obvious we have nothing in common but toothpaste dots — Wow…your blog is intriguing!
January 19th, 2014 at 5:13 pm
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January 19th, 2014 at 3:42 pm
Great idea for bike tours!
January 19th, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Thank you Eve, for stopping by. We appreciate your feedback. Let us know what you would like to hear about. Thanks for joining the ZSE troop. Stay tuned for more!
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January 20th, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Hi! I’m going to share your backpacking tips with my daughter! And thank you so much for visiting my blog. It’s great to discover yours!
January 21st, 2014 at 5:17 am
v creative!
January 22nd, 2014 at 12:09 am
i travel a ton and never thought of this. great idea
January 22nd, 2014 at 6:24 pm
Reblogged this on SHSKR JOURNAL.
January 23rd, 2014 at 2:54 am
Wow! That is a brilliant idea!
Thanks for following my blog!
January 28th, 2014 at 10:51 pm
So funny. This is totally up my alley. Always gotta pack light!