TePe or not TePe: my interdental 'journey', and a flossing epiphany

Source: Wikimedia Commons (via Becker1999)

Sorry for the long gap between posts: this was partly due to another fitful procession of tradesmen, compounded by a stinking cold, which I still have, but with any luck you won't catch it from my keyboard. My sense of smell is a distant memory, so I really don't feel like writing about perfume at the moment. I have even been off alcohol, would you believe, which goes to show how rough I have been, though last night I 'made myself' have a gin and tonic, as I still managed to get a massive amount done this week, and wanted to mark that achievement alcoholically, as I do. The lime was doubtless good for my throat anyway. ;)

So instead of a perfume-themed post (again!!...I know, I know...I promise they'll be back), I would like to share my recent - and quite profound and far-reaching (literally, haha) - flossing epiphany.  I will use a more or less chronological format for the flossing methods I have used over the years, setting out the pros and cons of each. For it is certainly the case that interdental implements have evolved no end since the early days of wooden toothpicks.

But they are a good place to start, come to think of it. ;)

Wooden toothpicks

I remember these going right back to my childhood, usually kept in a little glass jar in the centre of a dining room or restaurant table, along with the condiments. If you were among friends or family, it was acceptable to have a good old rootle around your gums after your meal, even in company. The downside of these 'old school' toothpicks - which for any knitters amongst you very much resembled extremely short double-pointed needles - is that they were invariably too fat to get into any but the widest of interstices. That said, they are good at fetching out biggish pieces of meat or vegetable matter that are wedged half in, half out of a tooth, say. (Sorry if that is too much information.)

Source: Amazon

Classic floss thread

I didn't really get into flossing proper till my 30s, when I dated a guy who was evangelical about flossing twice a day and took absolutely forever over it. Even at that age he had had problems with receding gums, and we went to LA together in 1994 for him to have cutting-edge dental surgery - cutting being the operative word! - which involved his gums being cut and flipped back and somehow coaxed into re-affixing themselves lower down the teeth afterwards. And no, I really don't know how that was done, but it was the sort of semi-cosmetic dentistry for which Hollywood is renowned. And then he engaged in a spot of primal screaming therapy while he was there. I can understand how the mere fact of having your gums rearranged may have driven him to such a thing, though he did have other unresolved personal issues not related to teeth. Anyway, his flossing weapon of choice in those days, which I do still occasionally resort to today, was a reel of coated thread that you cut to the required length.

The pros of thread are that it is cheap and quite effective. However, it can hurt your gums by cutting into them (here we go again with our cutting imagery!), plus it is only deployable where you have double-sided access. There is no chance of using it in some tiny crevices on a back molar that can only be approached from the front. Plus it makes me salivate an unseemly amount, so is messy!

Floss picks

These are a supposedly convenient format, where a piece of floss thread is strung tightly between two prongs of a plastic pick. They remind me of a small hacksaw crossed with a bow and arrow and are neither use nor ornament - or not in my mouth. The locations where you can insert the floss part and not find the plastic frame bangs into your teeth at the same time are few and far between.

Source: dentagama

TePe brushes (in assorted sizes)

I don't know when I gravitated to these - it was probably at my dentist's suggestion - but they were my go-to flossing tool of choice for a long time, even though they were also deeply flawed. A pack of about 5 or 6 costs around £3 (if you get the actual brand, TePe), and they were almost always sold out of my size - .45mm ie the orange ones. Buy a size up or down and they would be so big you'd be ramming them pointlessly in between your smaller teeth, while the overly small ones rattle about from side to side and don't get that optimum traction for poking stuff out. (I have a friend who owns TePes in about four or five different colours, each dedicated to about three teeth each, but such a systematic approach is much too fiddly for me, even if they do look quite pretty lined up on the edge of the sink.)

Blue TePe - 0.6mm (too big for most of my teeth!)

To the lack of availability issue in my preferred size add the fact that TePes - the branded ones, but also to varying degress every single own label and budget knock off on the market (and believe me, I've tried them all) - are flagrant examples of built-in product obsolescence. Even if you have bought the correct size for the majority of your teeth, the TePes or their equivalent invariably crumple on impact after a few teeth and are as good as useless from that point on. As well as crumpling and bending into unusable shapes, I have had some cheapo ones that actually shed all their toilet brush-style fibres in between my teeth, making them feel like there was more stuff trapped in them than I started with, because there was! This left the TePe wannabe as bare steel, which was like flossing with a straight bit of barbed wire. That way lies bleeding gums, trust me on this.

Bendy white plastic toothpicks

Not so long ago I was staying with my brother and sister-in-law and they introduced me to a different kind of toothpick - a flat, tapered plastic white spear, that was completely flexible and seemed to fit most of my teeth except the ones with really tiny gaps. So technology has clearly come on a lot since the days of the wooden ones and I was really impressed with these, which are washable and reusable to boot. They are quite hard to find, plus I cannot even remember their name, but meanwhile, I have recently made an even greater discovery...drum roll...

TePe EasyPick

I found these quite by chance when failing (yet again!) to located the .45mm variety of the classic TePe style. They are a slight enhancement of the bendy white plastic toothpicks, because they are very fine at the tip, but graduated in width so by the time you get to the hilt, they are suitable for the gappiest of gaps (in my mouth at any rate, and excluding the gap where I had a tooth out and didn't put anything in its place, haha, which would take some bridging!). They are also incredibly flexible and bendy, to the point of going 'boing' when you flick them. Okay, maybe not quite. But they fit absolutely every tooth, you get tons of them in a pack, they are reusable quite a few times before you may accidentally deform the delicate fine tip. And of course your mileage may vary. I mentioned them to the friend with all the colours of TePes - and teeth of different sizes - and he said they didn't work for him. So probably if you have tighter teeth in the main they will be a perfect solution, less so if you have a more gappy arrangement.

That said, they do come in two sizes: M/L (in blue) and S/XS in orange - there is more info in this link, and no, I am not on commission or in any way associated with the company. ;) If one of the variants of TePe EasyPick is suitable for your gnashers, the savings are potentially huge! I for one am smitten. And my interdental detritus is history.

Hive mind help needed to solve a pigmented pillow puzzle!

Sorry that the blog is still not very perfume-orientated at the moment, despite my having all manner of more or less on-message posts up my sleeve! Am still in the throes of the bathroom-cum-utility renovation, even if this week has been relatively quieter than last. Though today I had new windows fitted! Unfortunately one of the panes had cracked in transit, so the fitters will have to come back to complete the job with the new pane they have now ordered. And on Thursday, following a visit by the electrician, I went to order a light fitting he had confirmed was appropriate for the room, but had my purchase cancelled and money refunded by the supplier, as soon as they realised the item had in fact been discontinued. So I tried another company, only to have the exact same thing happen again!, and another refund land in my account. Then I looked on Amazon, whose listing for the same light included the tantalising words: '3 new available'. I had long since given up trusting information on retailer websites though, so I rang the Amazon supplier and asked him if he did indeed have three of these lights in stock, or whether it was merely another chimera. I may not have said 'chimera' as such, but I did go on to explain that if these items really were in his possession, might I buy one? To which he replied that they probably weren't, but that a lorry was just hoving into view in his yard, allegedly with 19 units of the very light on board, arguably the last remaining examples of that model in the whole of the land. We agreed that he would go out immediately and inspect the delivery, and if the lights were indeed there - and his order not also cancelled! - he would confirm my own purchase via Amazon. Am pleased to say that he did just that, so it appears to have been a case of third time lucky.

Let there be light! This light!

And none of the above is remotely relevant to the subject of this post, but does at least illustrate how time-consuming and distracting even small setbacks can be on a programme of works like this. It will all get done eventually, I keep telling myself, though it seems people's availability keeps unravelling into the distant future every time you blink...

So - changing tack completely - this is a quick post to inquire if anyone knows why I sometimes wake up to yellowy-veering-to-orange stains on my pillow and the top few inches of my duvet cover, which might also come into contact with my face and neck.

One of my theories is leaching hair dye, though if that were so it would happen every night, plus I haven't had even a few highlights put in for many months. Which leaves the possibility that certain night creams may be oozing pigment as I sleep - I do chop and change my night time routine you see, and a few of these products may be longer in the tooth than is advised / I even remember(!). Or there is the final possibility, which I would really rather not contemplate, namely that I am quietly oozing 'agent orange' myself. Where exactly in my body such effluvium would ultimately emanate from doesn't bear thinking about.

The incident pictured - I know it is quite faint in the photo, but trust me, you would notice the discolouration in the flesh, or in the medium thread count cotton, rather - happened after a night of using a Lacura cream from Aldi. I had visions of its oil base separating out in the wee small hours and seeping onto the pillow from my entire face. I promptly threw it away in the morning, not least because I had had it...um...a while. But you can't actually see any yellow or orange pigment in any of these products I put on my face at night, that's the puzzling thing. And texturally they certainly don't look like they are separating - far from it. I can only conclude that it may be an entirely nocturnal phenomenon, like sea turtles laying eggs, raccoons rifling through bins, or Truffle hunter gathering her latest mouse present for me to find on the carpet first thing.

Hmm, I am not having much luck getting these stains out of my cotton bedding either, possibly because I usually use non-bio powder, which is arguably quite the wrong kind to tackle coloured grease marks, if that is what they are.

Suggestions gratefully received - am hoping someone will have a light bulb moment! And that any solutions will ideally not involve an elaborate homemade concoction of baking powder, toothpaste, white vinegar, salt, eye of newt and Tippex.

Plumb crazy and round the U-bend again!

I am sorry my posts have become a bit sparse of late...I have got a lot going on at the moment, including some quite disruptive house renovations - structural work to tackle rising damp by the back door, and the gutting of the utility room, which was full of condemned sanitary fixtures. It is a funny space: half utility, half bathroom, and will retain its ambiguous dual status when the project is complete. That probably won't be till November now, but there are still lots of jobs to do meanwhile: rewiring, new gas pipework, new windows, and the capping of a chimney that was letting in rain and contributing to the damp problem.

Then to make matters worse, my boiler snuffed it yesterday within half an hour of being serviced. The gas fitter said it was the shock of such a vigorous intervention, not unlike a 90 year old dying on the operating table. But late yesterday evening it gradually sparked back into life - very fitfully at first, but now it seems to have remembered what it used to do before its heat exchanger was so startlingly de-furred. To stay with our operative analogy, it turns out that the boiler may simply have needed longer in the recovery room. It is knocking (and juddering) on 17 years old, mind, which in combi boiler years is probably like 135 for a human, so I do see a new boiler in my near future. I was absolutely frozen yesterday afternoon and evening, but consoled myself with the fact that while the house may have been cold, it was at least no longer damp!

Yesterday was typical of how the week has been. I did not stop chopping Hydra heads between 7am, when I couldn't find my car keys, and 2.30am, which I finally stopped puzzling over my notes on mirror screws and access panels . I'd say I've been 'firefighting', only that would have sounded pleasantly warm, and for most of the day I was anything but. Yes, there is a lot coming at me at the moment, with crazy levels of multi-tasking and snap decisions: 'Are you having trickle vents?' 'What degree of frosting on your glass?' 'Do you want an extractor fan?' 'What about a self-demisting mirror?'(No!). 'Where is the gas bonded?' 'Where is the manual to that?' 'Laminate or solid?' 'Pipework at a high or low setting?' 'Flexible black conduit at 90 degrees or the existing metal rod?' 'Over the porch or under the step?' 'What model name?' 'This guarantee or that guarantee with this catch or that caveat?' 'Is this rubbish even allowed in my bin?' 'Where do you want the sink putting in the garden?' 'That knackered cupboard with the louvred doors - chuck or keep?' 'How do you take your coffee?' 'What is the projection of the tumble dryer door when open?' 'Metal edging strip or butchered architrave?' 'If your cooker has the wrong kind of flame, you do realise I will have to condemn it on the spot...?' I could go on, but that is quite enough, so instead I'll reheat my tea for the nth time before the roofer comes.

It's strange...I was in Dungeness at the weekend, which is a very rum place with its nuclear power station flanked by two lighthouses. It is where 'end of the world' meets 'other worldly'...stones have holes, houses are train carriages, and sea cabbage grows between the sleepers in Derek Jarman's garden. But for a surreal landscape you really don't need to go further than the Stoke City-liveried, crunchy crystalline wall of my utility...

The late Derek Jarman's house