You should not rinse directly after brushing. Toothpaste has a higher concentration of fluoride than any mouthwash, if you're going to use a rinse the recommendation is to wait 30 mins after brushing, and you should never rinse with water
Also, if you're not supposed to rinse for a while after brushing, and you're not supposed to brush for a while after eating, and anyway eating with morning breath is gross, but so is eating with toothpaste-breath... when the hell are you supposed to eat breakfast?
It's fine to swish and spit with a small amount (~5mL) of water, making a "slurry" with the toothpaste. It may even be beneficial because the swishing would coat all of your mouth's surfaces.
Is this common advice? I would find having my mouth coated with toothpaste residue to be extremely off putting. You would also end up swallowing quite a bit, yes?
It’s common advice from all the dentists and hygienists I’ve ever seen, and it’s not something that comes up in conversation among my friends here but from personal experience I wanna say all or most of my partners I’ve ever seen brush their teeth they do the same. If it helps, this is in Europe, so we (as in dentists here) may have differing guidelines as you.
From what I know, the gist is that fluoride is mineralized into enamel which strengthens it (not sure if this is the correct phrasing). Whatever the correct phrase is, it works by direct prolonged contact. Not rinsing is a way to guarantee this contact, but even if you do there’s still fluoride in your saliva to do some good.
I imagine the taste depends on your toothpaste. I use a plain one (Elmex) that doesn’t really have a taste, and the taste goes away fast enough that I don’t notice it.
As far as swallowing goes, not really. Most of it gets spat out. Besides, (some) astronauts in space just swallow it all instead of spitting cause it’s cleaner :)
Yes I know fluoride can be toxic but the amount you’d swallow (a small pea sized dab is all you need, all those pictures of the entire brush covered by toothpaste is advertisement to get you to think you need that much) is probably not going to have any effect.
Leaving toothpaste residue (containing fluoride) on your teeth is the main thing toothpaste is for.
Fluoride changes the chemical properties of tooth enamel to make it stronger. So removing toothpaste immediately after applying it reduces the effectiveness.
If not rinsing is intolerable then rinsing with a fluorinated mouthwash, which provides less fluoride that toothpaste but is still better than nothing, would be a better choice.
