Instead Of A Plastic Toothbrush, Now You Can Brush Your Teeth With… A Twig?
An old tradition is being repackaged as a sleek new startup product. We might stick with our trusty Oral-B, thank you very much.
Before the modern toothbrush existed, people cleaned their teeth by chewing on twigs–and in some parts of the world, the practice is still common. Now, a startup is trying to popularize a modern day stick-as-toothbrush in the U.S.
The small stick, called a miswak (in Arabic, it’s literally a “tooth cleaning stick”), is trimmed from a particular species of tree. The fibers happen to contain sodium bicarbonate and silica–both of which are abrasive enough to help remove stains–along with natural antiseptics, a resin that supposedly forms a protective layer over the teeth, and essential oils that can freshen breath.
To use the stick, you have to trim the end, chew until it forms bristles, and then soak it in water to create a small brush. Every few days, you trim it again.
Still, he thinks it can appeal to customers looking for something a little more natural than plastic bristles. The twigs aren’t completely environmentally-friendly–to keep them fresh and sterile, Bashar packages them in small pen-like tubes made of plastic.
They also aren’t cheap: A single miswak last 20 days, and a package of two from Miswak Club is $14.99.