When enough is really too much

Through the lens of sufficiency, nearly everything around us turns out to be excessive, often by strategy. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using AI

Sometimes a question about toothpaste enters my head in the morning. It pops up after I stumble to the bathroom, eyes wide shut, find my toothbrush, and squeeze out the toothpaste. It slides out like a sweet, white, chubby slug with red stripes, that cheerful blob shape made famous by millions of TV spots. The question also slides out around then, short and sweet like the blob - Do I need so much?

People normally don't waste time on such trivial matters. Toothpaste is a passing blip in the day, and who cares if you squeeze out a little more or less? It tastes zesty, your mouth zings afterward and you're off to a great start. I would have moved on, but the caffeine jolt I got next reminded me of two of life's guiding principles - Never let a good question go unanswered; and Details matter.

So I ask you, again - is the 2-2.5 cm or about 1.2 ml of toothpaste you squeeze out daily really overkill? Have you turned into a toothpaste glutton? Here's what I found -

How much toothpaste you use depends on how many teeth you have and how big they are, which brings us to your age. According to celebrity dentists Drs Chetan and Shalini Pradhan, a smear of toothpaste about the size of a grain of rice is sufficient for children under 3. For kids between 3 and 6, a small pea of toothpaste is quite enough. For everyone else, a ribbon of toothpaste 1-1.5 cm, or about 0.25 ml, pushed between the bristles to prevent it from getting dislodged, is more than enough.

So - we're all using just a little more toothpaste than we need? So what? What's my point here?

Let's do some math using a popular brand, let's say, Colgate Total Advance, which you can get from Flipkart in a standard 120 gm tube or about 92.3 ml for Rs 210.

Squeezing out a fat dollop of 1.2 ml each time would give you about 77 brushings, or about five weeks of use if you brush twice daily. Each brushing would cost about R2.70. You'd buy about 10 tubes a year, an annual spend of Rs 2100.

If you followed the dentists' advice and carefully squeezed our only 0.25 ml, a ribbon about 1.5 cm long, you would get dramatically more brushings - 369, or about 26 weeks of use. You'd spend a mere R420 a year on toothpaste. That's two tubes a year instead of 10.

The bottom line: by overusing toothpaste unthinkingly, you are spending R1680 more on just this one product. That money is going to the toothpaste company.

Which brings me to the sneaky part - it's in nobody's interest to tell you how much toothpaste you need for a good brushing. In the TV ads, you saw that fat sweet dollop and assumed that was how much you should use - and no one told you otherwise. With millions of toothpaste users pumping out a smidgeon more than they need every time, the toothpaste company is laughing all the way to the bank.

It's in the toothpaste manufacturer's commercial interest to subtly encourage you to use more than you need. The net sales of just one company, Colgate-Palmolive, grew by 8.8 per cent in the year ending March 2024, equivalent to an additional Rs 456.3 crore, with its toothpaste range growing in double digits.

The answer to my question - Do I need so much? - is apparently no.

Let's go wider. No one tells you how much shampoo is sufficient, or body wash, hand sanitiser or dish soap. Here's the downlow -

For most hair types, you need a coin-sized amount of shampoo, about 2-3 ml. Most people use a palmful: 10-20 ml.

One or two pumps of body wash, or 3-5 ml, is enough for a full body bath. People joyously pump out 3 to 5 glops or between 10 and 15 ml. Oh, and it doesn't have to lather.

You don't need more than a fat drop of hand sanitiser, about 0.5 ml. People use 2-3 ml, or 2-3 pumps.

Most dishes don't need more than a drop or two of detergent - not the exuberant 5-10 ml you squirt out.

The minuscule extra amounts of toiletries we deal ourselves are enriching corporate coffers while draining significant thousands from your pocket.

Through the lens of sufficiency, nearly everything around us turns out to be excessive, often by strategy. The water tap, for example, is designed to offer no resistance; one twist and it's gushing out in full force, even if all you're washing is a teaspoon. The sooner you run out of water, the earlier you'll need the well-water supplier's truck. We live lives of too much - too many clothes we don't wear, way too many shoes and sandals, and more food than we can eat.

Ask yourself the ‘enough' question and the answers may change your life. Do you need three meals a day? Eight glasses of water? 10,000 steps? Eight hours of sleep? Once you start interrogating the numbers and quantities we follow unthinkingly, something remarkable happens.

Life becomes simpler, more elegant - and ineffably richer.

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You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com

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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper