Flossing. It’s one of those annoying habits to do at first, but you don’t even give it a second thought after a while. It’s easy, takes only a minute or two, and you’re done.
For years I’ve been using the Oral-B Glide Pro-Health Comfort Floss. It works great; there are no issues with it sliding in and out of my teeth; it has a fresh taste and doesn’t break easily. What more can you ask, right? So I’m at Target and saw that the UP & UP Smooth Slide Floss is significantly cheaper; they claim it’s comparable to the Oral-B floss that I usually buy, so why not try it out? Many generics seem to be equally as good, and how hard can it be to copy floss? Oh, how wrong I could be!
Here are just a few emotions I experienced over the short-lived trial with UP & UP “Smooth Slide” Floss.
Annoyance, Anger, Frustration, Sadness, Pain, Regret
Quite the range of emotions that I never thought a seemingly insignificant act like flossing could bring.
Let me explain…
I knew shortly after trying it wasn’t comparable to the name-brand stuff; this floss is THIN! Surprisingly, the first time I used it, I didn’t have a problem “cutting” the string… that’s where later frustration came in.
The thinness of this floss doesn’t clean nearly as well. It takes multiple passes to get that clean feeling.
I will say this “Smooth Slide” floss lives up to the name in the way that it will slide off your fingers when flossing. It’s so slippery! You need 4 to 5x the amount, or else you’ll lose grip of it. Don’t worry; getting 4 to 5 feet isn’t a problem since the floss won’t cut. It will just shred into a million different frays, which are essentially useless anyway.
I can’t tell you how increasingly frustrated I’d get from trying to cut this garbage floss! I would yank on it, and literal feet of floss would spool out. So I would try again, this time with more force, and guess what? The same thing would happen.
Eventually, I got to the point where I brought scissors in the bathroom to cut this crap. At one point, someone took the scissors out of the bathroom, and so I had to resort to the usual way of cutting it, you know, with the built-in “cutter” that didn’t work.
I wrapped the floss tight around my fingers and thought I had it good, so I yanked with serious force. The floss slid so hard and fast across my fingers that I literally thought I’d severed them off! I had deep painful indents on multiple fingers.
I had a bit of a temper tantrum. I had built-up anger from using the UP & UP Smooth Slide Floss, which came to an explosive end! I took the floss, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it until it was in a million pieces!
I threw it in the garbage and never used the other one in the pack. I regret ever buying this worthless product! Even though it’s about half what Oral-B costs, I wouldn’t use this floss even if someone gave it to me.
It took a while to get back into the flossing routine again after this experience. I eventually got the excellent Oral-B Glide floss and have gotten to the point where it’s just a routine habit again.
What a pathetic attempt by Target’s UP & UP brand to even claim they made a product even comparable to Oral-B Glide Floss.
POSITIVES
- Cheaper than the name brand “ORAL-B Glide Floss.”
If you averaged how much that goes to waste (fraying, not cutting), you’ll probably end up cheaper buying the ORAL-B floss.
There is a lot of waste, and the quality isn’t even comparable. It is cheaper, but I doubt it is overall.
NEGATIVES
- Frays WAY WAY too easy!
This floss frays EVERY TIME you use it. It becomes so thin and frail and, in turn, breaks very easily. It’s constantly snaps while flossing. It takes at least two or three “pieces” to complete the flossing process for your entire mouth.
- Cutting the floss is not smooth at all.
You have to use quadruple if not more of the amount you’d typically use with the ORAL-B Glide Floss. For the floss being so fragile and fraying so easy, you’d think that it would cut easily, but that’s not the case. I’ve tried pulling it fast – that’s hit or miss; sometimes it works, and sometimes it makes you pull out way too much; most of the time, it’s the latter.
I got to the point where I had to use scissors to cut the amount I needed – such a pain!
- Thinner and doesn’t glide as well as the ORAL-B stuff.
How is it comparable to the “name brand” floss if it isn’t even the same feel? It’s thinner and doesn’t glide nearly as well. Doesn’t clean as well due to that fact.
