Not a sexy topic but essential for long term survival... soap and toothbrush

Not a sexy topic but essential for long term survival... soap and toothbrush.
Tell me about what your thoughts are on stocking up soaps and toothbrush/paste.
Would it be better to store bar soaps than liquid? Is antibactrial soap better than regular soap?
I know toothbrush is essential but what about toothpaste? Can you just use salt instead of tooth paste?

What's your thought?

how about powdered soap? ive been thinking dry powdered soap would store the best and be easier to transport if need be. like the stuff that is found in bathrooms in shops and factories and such. we have dispensers at work, but they have been empty for years and no one remembers what the name brand of the soap they were for was. might find it in an industrial supply/MRO catalog. ive been storing powdered laundry soap for years no sweat, no reason wash soap wouldnt be the same in my mind.

Bar soaps can suffer from dehydration. Best to vac-seal them for LTS.

:-/

What's is the downside to a "dehydrated" bar of soap? Requires a little more water and a little more elbow grease to work up a lather –– but also doesn't practically melt in the water.

Bar soap gives you the best bang for your buck and probably the most efficient use of space/weight for the amount of cleaning you get. Have some powdered soap detonate in your ruck and you will never again pack it (as I learned the hard way) again.

I don't think it is "essential" but it is a great thing to have for sure. There used to be commercial tooth powders for teeth cleaning, I think they mostly lack fluoride though. Depending your thoughts on fluoride that could be an advantage or disadvantage I guess. In the past things like salt, baking soda, wood ash, charcoal etc have been used, some straight some flavored with mints and cloves etc. Brushes used to be made by hand so if you ran out of toothbrushes you could probably make one. Some people used to use chewed up sticks.

[edit] I remember a colgate tooth powder wheni was a kid- apparently the Indians still make it:

FWIW all soaps are anti-bacterial.

They're small enough (bar soap and toothpaste/brushes) to buy now and store on shelves.

Is there a soap that can be used for both washing people and clothes? It would make it easier to just stock one kind fo soap.
Also I was just told by a coworker that if not carefully stored, rodents will eat bar soap.

I regard soap and toothbrush as essential.

We buy bar soap. we buy it on sale, and immediattely unwrap the bars, placing them in baskets. Let the air get to them. They harden with age and last longer than newer, softer bars do.

When toothpaste runs out, use baking soda.

They used to be one and the same. I've used regular bar soap to wash clothes before Ivory or whatever I had. You can stock something like Fels Naptha soap for clothes too. Don't forget you can make soap too- it isn't like once all your store bought soap is gone thats it no more soap for the rest of SHTF or whatever. If you live in the country and burn wood you have the ash to get lye and you'll likely be keeping the fat/drippings/grease too.

Toothbrushes are cheap if you buy the boring kind in a dispenser box (you can even have your name printed on them!). Plan on replacing a toothbrush every 6 months and make sure everyone will have their own toothbrushes.

As for toothpaste, the paste itself does not have a shelf life, as it is a suspension of fine abrasives (baking soda is one of them) and will continue to work for decades. However the fluoride in many toothpastes does decay over time (usually 2yrs) and will eventually be unable to bond to the tooth enamel, though the toothpaste will continue to be able to clean your teeth just as well.

If you are worried about the paste dehydrating, there are many 'natural' tooth powders on the market, these usually exclude a foaming agent and the fluoride, but are a more effective abrasive than baking powder alone.

Salt water can be used as a mouth rinse, but do not use salt in place of toothpaste for any period longer than a couple days, the crystals of salt are too course and will cause damage to the gums and can speed erosion of surface enamel. If you must improvise, use baking soda and water (a couple drops of clove oil can be added to this paste to help relieve sensitivity).

Dave makes lye soap using ashes and deer fat. Fair warning, his YouTube channel is addictive.

Time for a confession, my wife is the one on top of this area.
(Hey, we're a team, we have been for 32 years next month; I must be doing something right)

Anyway she keeps track of a number of what we used to call "sundries" back in the day.
She started with the camper. She told me, "if we have it in the camper we will want it when times are tough. That is where I will start".
She has put away both the powdered soap in boxes, and bar soap. She takes the bar soap and puts 2 or 3 of them in 1 qt. freezer bags, then vacuums them, then puts them in plastic tupperware style boxes she buys buy the dozens at the dollar store. She has a couple of big plastic tubs that are "soap products" and puts the boxes in the plastic tubs. I think she gets about 18 bars or so in a box. I know she has boxes of laundry soap, powdered is her preference. She puts them in 1 gallon bags in case the boxes rub through, which they even do in normal use.
We also use old-school 3-ring binders for "recipes" like the soap with Lye or ash deal, and anything we find of value that might be worth retaining.
I like the binders as a backup to the CD thumb drive deal.
She has similar arrangements for everything you can think of that would be in your bathroom supply. Male deodorant, female deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste, razor blades and antibacterial creams, foot powder, q-tips cotton balls, etc etc, etc.
I asked her about the "doubling up" of the anti-itch stuff and other items that are also in the big first aid tubs but she says it is easier to have doubles than go looking through the F/A kit or the "field hospital" deal we put together that is in a big backpack...logic being that if we ahve someone down in the woods or something it may be easier to haul supplies to the victim in a pack than a big bulky tub.
In my mind it makes good sense to store these items. Retaining some sense of the "normal" during hard times is good for morale.

I dehydrate my soap on purpose. Open and let it sit for a year or two. When I get to using it, the bar lasts much much much longer than it would if it was used fresh.

Learn to make your own. My mom started making her own soap as a "survival skill" and it has grown into a business. She now makes gift baskets of bouquet soaps. It ain't rocket science.

Dr. Bronner's liquid original in peppermint. I have been using this since 1970. A tiny bit goes a long way, good for anything.

Baking soda works just fine, you can use it as a dentrifice/tooth powder by itself, or with a bit of water work up a paste. Some people make their own pastes as a hobby, by the way.

If you live in the right climate for it, plant some wintergreen. Chewing the leaves helps prevent cavities. One of the main active ingredients in Listerine (methyl salicylate) can be extracted from the leaves (oil of wintergreen). If I recall the story correctly, it started being used frequently for dental care when dentists back east noticed that their young patients who chewed wintergreen leaves on the way to and from school hardly ever got cavities.

Soap is easy enough to make, and you can turn it into a hobby or a cottage industry. Give it a whirl.

A while back, I found a great deal on toothbrushes on Amazon and ordered two gross (288 toothbrushes), I figure I'm good for for about 70 years for the wife and I.

As for soap, I prefer Dial Gold, and she prefers this super-duty moisturizing shit from the hippy store. I have about 100 bars of unwrapped Dial Gold sitting in my bathroom under the sink, dehydrating, I add an eight pack to the bottom every couple months to keep my stocks up.

As far as laundry detergent... SUN powdered detergent is cheap, works good, and comes in a plastic bin with 160 loads in it. Works for me!

They aren't necessary. Toothpaste is just a medium for your plaque to catch in and the rest is poison. Rinse as you brush and avoid the poison. The mouthwash effect, IE, the smell is just a trick to make you think you are clean.

Any surface will clean your teeth.

Floss is an important item. Floss does work that can't be done effectively by other means.

Stock floss and really cheap brushes.


The longest lasting bath soap, imo, is Irish spring. 20 bars will last you 10 years. or 40 barsif there is 2 of you.

Spent most all of '98 in Bosnia, tooth care or lack there of was a big eye opener.....teeth dont do well when neglected and they cannot be reversed just removed. Toothbrushes were all but impossible to come by for locals. Ever since I keep a healthy stock of sams/costco multi packs in prep. Post shtf a toothbrush is one of those things everybody remembers and wants but nobody has and the results are permanent. Hell, saw.em off and stuffem in the tubes of your TP forts. They arent expensive, weigh nothing, never expire and cost little but try going a few days without one.. then a few weeks, months or years. Buy cheap/stack deep

this

My girlfriend does the couponing thing. If you look around, you can get toothbrushes for free, with coupons and discounts. I have enough in my house to last me for the next fifteen years now.

First thing that comes to mind is;



A, people over wash their body. Feet, junk and pits obviously need to be kept clean and dry.


2, While stocking tooth brushes, probably a good idea to stock floss and a few sets of dental picks.



Also, on soap, when I was diving I did some saturation diving, and bacteria infections are easier to get than normal (especially if you get scratched) so we used a mix of betadine and water to keep from getting infections, I wonder, what is the shelf life of betadine and hydrogen peroxide? IMHO those two things are wonder drugs, and if the shelf life is long enough worth their weight in gold to stock up on.

Dr Bronners. It's concentrated, so a 4 oz bottle can last weeks. You can wash your entire body, your teeth, your clothes, your dishes, whatever.

A quart bottle will last a small family months if used carefully.

It also biodegrades quickly, so you're not hosing your water supply, although you should still not wash or bathe directly in your water supply.

There's a biography of Dr Bronner on Netflix. That guy was a nut.

Az

We stockpile all of the above. We use couponing to get the toothpaste basically for free. Toothbrushes are a handout at the dentist. The soap is a matter of taste but I stock a good bit. At some point it stops being about "surviving" but becomes about "thriving." I want my family to be relatively comfortable and safe.

Google bulk toothbrushes - they are inexpensive.
Salt & baking soda if my stores of paste get used.
I have laundry supplies from the DIY thread here to last a lonnng time.
At present, I have a couple hundred bars of soap, but I don't make my own yet.

My mom worked in a soap store. I have dozens of pounds of very high quality, expensive soap.

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A Big +1 for Dr. Bronners I also used it as a teenager after Hapkido practice on any painfull joints

This. Castille Soap. Taste takes some getting used to . But you'll know what clean actually is after you switch, lots of stuff in modern toothpaste that isn't exactly good for tooth health either.

I use my bars of soap till they become small enough that they would be of little use then dry and store the pieces in a plastic bag.

I've also begun breaking the bars in half and I don't see a difference in lathering the washcloth and the bars last twice as long...

(Got the idea from my Aunt who lived through the depression.)

For the first time users:

Use caution the first time you try DrBronners peppermint; you'll start looking for that munchkin that's holding an ice cube to your nether regions.

Works great in the summer on those hot days.

My wife and I have been using Dr Bronners for shampoo, soap and laundry detergent for years. Works great and A TINY BIT goes a long way.

I'm just now using my soap I bought in 2003
I think I have enough for another 20 years on hand
Still using razors form 2006 too (bought a bunch)

I also keep several bottles of Listerine or Scope in rotation.

The Bronners does well diluted in a spray bottle for bathing and general cleaning.

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