Dear Ask Anything,

I just rearranged my dorm room and I found a long-lost tube of toothpaste. Conveniently, I ran out of my current tube last night. But the tube disappeared the first week of school. Is it still OK to use? Or does toothpaste expire like condoms do?
– Brush Your Teeth (to the Sesame Street song)

Dear Teeth Brusher,

First week of school? No big deal. Brush away. I’m glad you’re brushing.

As long as the tube wasn’t open and crusted onto the floor it should be fine. Don’t scrape it off and use it, though. I knew a girl who stepped on her toothpaste tube during the night and it squirted out all over the floor. She wasn’t the cleanest girl and left it there to rot. But did she fear her toothpaste was ruined? No. She went on using it, as should you.

Your toothpaste probably has an expiration date, which I would guess is around 2012. Toothpaste has lots of chemicals, so it lasts a while.

Even if your toothpaste is “expired,” I encourage you to continue using it. “Expired” toothpaste still works – I have been using some for the past six months.

My childhood best friend’s mother is a dentist. She went to dentist conventions where she got free stuff. It was great because she always gave me free dental supplies. This summer she gave me teeth-whitening polish and toothpaste in bulk. The whitening gel was “expired,” but that didn’t stop me from trying it and giving it to family and friends as gifts. I can’t say the polish actually works because I haven’t used it on a regular basis, but I bet I would have pearlier whites if I tried it out.

I brought a bulk box of about 30 travel-size toothpaste tubes to school fall semester, and haven’t spent money on toothpaste since and have remained cavity free. I’ve had cavities in the past, so having zero cavities while using the expired toothpaste shows its power.

Expiration dates are relative. You shouldn’t drink expired milk that smells like death and has chunks in it, but there’s nothing wrong with using expired aspirin or vitamins. I started taking multivitamins earlier this week that expired in January 2006, but they’re still working.

Moral of the story: go ahead, brush those teeth.

Ask Anything is a weekly question and advice column. Maja Petersen and Rob Peterson are alternating columnists. Send your questions to [email protected].