# Sweaters and Toothpaste

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweaters-and-toothpaste/9191>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 24, 2000, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweaters-and-toothpaste/9191 "2000-03-24T01:26:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2000, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweaters-and-toothpaste/9191/21 "2000-03-26T04:56:00Z")

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Handy may have been thinking that this was a topic where responses needed to be dumbed-down a little (3800 posts will do that to ya).

The _active_ ingredients in most toothpaste are flourides & peroxides. Handy was probably referring to the abrasives that some toothpastes contain. Active ingredients are those that will, by themselves & without any externally applied force or energey, act against or react with another compound or entity. The abrasive surfactants (“sand”), while effective as cleaning agents, are not by themselves “active” (or even effective) unless forced into action (toothpaste by a tooth brush, for example).

Alcohol, for example, usually shows up under the _inactive_ or _other_ ingredients list even though it is clearly an active chemical compound.

It’s nice to hear that your sweater & CDs were rejuvinated with a little dab o’ crest, but I would only try that if the items in question were one step away from the trash can anyway. Sometimes scratches can be buffed out by using successively finer abrasives (I once successfully reclaimed a scratched magnifying lens this way) but there’s an excellent chance that you’ll do more harm than good, so be prepared to toss it in the trash if things don’t work out.

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2000, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweaters-and-toothpaste/9191/22 "2000-03-26T17:06:00Z")

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Maybe some of the newer toothpastes don’t contain sand. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have called it by its more common name, sand.  
Anyway, what’s in toothpaste according to Cecil?:  
'Most brands of toothpaste contain not sugar but a  
very small amount of saccharin…  
A  
sweetener of some kind is clearly necessary; unsweetened toothpaste is about as yummy as a  
stick of chalk. Other toothpaste ingredients, while we’re on the subject, include natural flavoring  
such as spearmint or peppermint, beefed up by emulsifiers, preservatives, and artificial flavors.  
These also are thought to be harmless, but you never know"

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