Piksters Natural Silk Dental Floss Review
Sustainability in dental is a tricky thing: as dentists we need to balance what is beneficial for dental health, whilst trying to ensure that we leave the lowest footprint possible. Dr Jasper Lee explains:
My previous attempts at using more natural floss weren’t good. Whilst good in principle of having reusable glass packaging and coming from compostable natural fibres, I found those products had quite a “yarn like” consistency: rough and wide string, making it hard to get between teeth contacts, and quite often fraying easily and breaking apart. That got me frustrated: if you’re using three times the length of floss to clean the whole mouth, it’s creating more waste and an expensive way to go.
Piksters is an Australia based company that has expanded their range of bamboo based interdental brushes to bamboo toothbrushes and now floss. The floss comes as a 25m reel and is a bee wax infused fibre, making it smoother to the touch and easier to move the floss between your gums and is easy to handle. Both being naturally based ingredients, the floss is suitable to place in your green FOGO bin, worm farm or composting pile.
The packaging and floss itself does not contain plastic, and is made of cardboard which is easily placed in paper recycling streams.
How does it handle clinically? I found that I could manoeuvre the floss between front teeth contacts easily, and the floss is a comfortable width to fit between the gum embrasures. On the back teeth, tight contacts can occasionally make the floss fray but I find that this doesn’t happen as often as the previous silk floss brands that I used. Unfortunately natural fibres will have a limit of the tensile strength over their plastic counterparts.
Summary: A zero plastic product and one where clinical efficacy won’t be compromised and can hold up to most use cases for daily flossing. This should suit most patient’s needs for regular daily flossing whilst doing your bit to reduce waste.
Positives
1) Decent flossing experience, less friable than other silk products on the market
2) 100% compostable product
3) Package is recyclable and durable
Negatives
1) Cardboard packaging floss cutter is not as sturdy as plastic containers and can deform when holding
2) Cost per metre length is significantly more than regular floss
3) Fraying on tight contacts on molar teeth can produce wastage
Piksters Silk Floss comes in an Unflavoured or Spearmint flavour and is available at Shepherds Hill Dental for $4.50
Dr Jasper is our resident sustainability guru at Shepherds Hill Dental Centre. He is on the ADA’s sustainability committee looking at ways to help the dental profession move towards a neutral ecological and carbon footprint. He consults at the practice on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. If you are looking for an appointment, we encourage you to contact us.
