When the manufacturer of the Blotting Brushes we’d made available for over 10 years stopped production during the long, strange paralysis of COVID, we were left with a problem.
We searched for a replacement manufacturer with the machinery, the patience and the sanity to make them for us.
What we received were offers to sell us their existing brushes, or quotations so extravagant that the brushes would have needed to be dipped in gold to justify the price.
Then, I received a message from Dr Elmar Jung with a link to a UK source of miswak brushes.
Excited, I ordered brushes for us both immediately.
A Memory from the Maasai Mara
I’ve used miswak before, but the sources were haphazard. My first encounter goes back to 1983, when I was in the Maasai Mara in Kenya. Walking with the Maasai tribe, they cut a small branch from a bush they called the toothbrush tree. They handed it to me and explained that I should fray one end until it became a natural little brush (see image below), then use it to clean my teeth and between them.
It seemed wonderfully primitive. It also seemed wonderfully sensible.
What the Miswak Actually Is
The miswak, as we explain in our book Gum Disease: The Silent Battle In Your Mouth, comes from the root of the Peelu tree, Salvadora persica, known in the Middle East as the Arak tree. It has been used for centuries across parts of Africa and the Middle East for cleaning teeth and maintaining the gums.
Research has found antibacterial and plaque-fighting properties, and the World Health Organization has recognised its usefulness for oral hygiene. The miswak contains naturally occurring compounds that help clean the teeth, freshen the breath and support the gums. And, rather pleasingly, it doesn’t require toothpaste although this is an optional extra.
An Accidental Demonstration
Perhaps the most memorable demonstration came to me not from a laboratory but from television.
During the football World Cup in South Africa (2010), whenever an African team scored, the camera would pan across the celebrating crowd. Row after row of faces appeared, many displaying spectacularly white teeth.
I remember thinking that this was one of those curious little observations that television accidentally reveals: the evidence wasn’t being presented as evidence, but there it was, grinning back at us.
So perhaps the disappearance of our Blotting Brushes isn’t quite the disaster it first appeared.
Sometimes you spend months looking for a complicated modern solution, only to discover that the answer has been sitting in a tree for several thousand years.
And now, apparently, it’s being delivered from an informative UK website that offers a variety of options, from miswak bristles on bamboo handles to the original miswak sticks.
There is something rather encouraging about that.
PS. If you fancy trying these brushes, here’s the link. And, in the interests of complete honesty, it is an affiliate link, so if you buy it, we make a small commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help keep the lights on, which, in these expensive times, is no small thing.
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