How does brushing your teeth in the shower save water?

Question

I've heard people, most notably Jennifer Aniston, say/brag that they brush their teeth in the shower in order to conserve water. Aniston even followed this statement up by preaching about how 2 minutes in the shower uses an entire day's worth of water for someone in Africa. My immediate thought when I hear this is, "That's stupid. You're using more water, not less". After all, brushing your teeth outside of the shower only requires the water to be on for about a second to first wet the brush and then another second to rinse it. When you brush in the shower, you're using more water for a longer period of time. You're essentially just extending your shower, right? Or am I missing something? I'm only asking because I would do it if I honestly thought it was helpful, but the way I see it it's just a bigger waste and someone needs to set Ms. Aniston straight.

Answer 1

She has one of her servants scrub her back while she is brushing her teeth, thus saving time and water. You could have your spouse or significant do the same, but if you are alone then, yeah it would waste water.

Answer 2

Well if you look at it from her stand point, you can brush your teeth and scrub yourself at the same time, rather than running that extra bit of water outside of the shower. It's only saving that little bit of water but the s****. woman thinks it matters.

Answer 3

no... the shower puts out more  water that the sink.  Unless you brush your teet hwhile you wash your hair.

Answer 4

Your right and I agree

Answer 5

it does not

I think it even consumes more water than brushing your teeth out of the shower

Answer 6

Typical Hollywood.   Doing the "green" thing because it's trendy, but of no value.  Sheryl Crow, whose music I do like suggested one square of toilet paper per visit.  Well, without going into too much detail, I can see problems with that.

Answer 7

you waste the water brushing your teeth in the shower by doing nothing but brushing your teeth i see what you mean by how that is stupid

Answer 8

She's wrong.  Just another person in a long line of people being green just to be trendy.  I'd say if your using more than 8 ounces of water to brush your teeth - you're doing something wrong.  It's possible to use far less than that even, as I've learned on camping trips with only 5 gallons of water for the weekend.

Answer 9

If you brush as soon as you hop in, while you are waiting for your hair to get wet enough to wash, then you may be saving some water, because you are using that time to also do something else, that would require additional water usage if you did it at the sink.  If you have hair Aniston's length or longer, it takes a little while for the water to soak in so you can wash it.  I agree though, that any saving is almost negligible.

Answer 10

It does not conserve water in the least.

Everyone should brush their teeth for a duration of 2 minutes to get them properly clean. This will just lengthen the time of the shower by two minutes. Think of all that wasted water!

If you brush your teeth out of the sink you only need a short blast of water to wet your tooth brush in the beginning and then some water to rinse at the end.

Never let the water run [: