It seems to be the common perception that in the post-apocalyptic world everyone will be happily filthy and there will be a beautiful sea of unwashed masses who eat grubs and live in abandoned basements.
This hypothesis overlooks the fact that for the last 100 years or so people have gotten used to being clean and coddled. The issue of personal hygiene is not simply about comfort, it’s about safety and survival.
Do you want to be the asshole who died from an infected pimple or an abscessed tooth?
Many of the daily grooming habits we’ll have to do without are things we’ve grown so accustomed to physiologically, that once they’re removed from our daily lives there will be a noticeable and traumatic impact.
Jack Sparrow and his friends don’t brush their teeth, but they’ve also probably built up a healthy tolerance for gingivitis and the pain of tooth rot.
And they grew up on a steady diet of liquor, and rats, and found organic materials.
In other words, they, like the folks in real life downtrodden areas, are just more rugged than we who visit the dentist and doctor every six months and cry about the possibility of getting a root canal.
That root canal, which will be under general or local anesthesia and comes with a prescription for heavy pain meds, is much preferable to waiting until the tooth just rots until it’s ready to fall out or getting it pulled out by a friend. That root canal is also preferable to the infection that a rotting tooth can cause. An infection that you can die of when left to spread untreated.
In the post-apocalypse world, brush your teeth.
Even if you don’t have access to toothpaste, guard that toothbrush with your life. Also, in a pinch, you always have the option of finding a Chew Stick (cinnamon should be easy to find).
I have nothing awesome to add this. I wanted only to note that I got a kick out of reading it!
So setting up a still will be impoirtant so we can make mouthwash.
Salt is good for keeping your teeth clean if you have nothing else. Oddly enough, so is charcoal. Just dampen a cloth, swirl it around in the salt/charcoal, rub all over your teeth.
The good news is, grubs are not sweet. No sugar to rot your teeth with!
Well, see, it depends on the kind of apocalypse we have. If it’s hyper aggressive rats, they’ll kill lots of people leaving us with an enormous stock pile of Colgate and toothbrushes. Should last until we can rebuild. And technically, you can use castille soap.
All these options and possibilities! There is never an excuse to leave your teeth unguarded as an access point for death and destruction to enter you life.
i’m wondering what would wipe us out that would also wipe out the vast amounts of extant baking soda on the planet.
You never know. Maybe the Baking Soda somehow goes nuclear.