1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to dental flossing tools and is particularly directed to a tool for releasably retaining one end of a strand of dental flossing material to facilitate manipulating the floss between the user's teeth.
2. Prior Art
As is well known, the use of dental flossing material is an important part of proper dental hygiene. Unfortunately, many people do not make a regular habit of flossing their teeth. One reason for this is that dental flossing material is conventionally sold in open spools and that it is necessary to manually unreel a desired quantity of flossing material and to hold the flossing material between one's fingers to perform the flossing operation, while attempting to manipulate the flossing material through the spaces between adjacent teeth. This manipulation requires some effort and it is often difficult to get an adequate grip on the strand of flossing material to enable such manipulation. Thus, the user's fingers frequently slip off of the strand of flossing material and the strand may brush against an unsanitary surface and, hence, be wasted. To avoid this problem, many users wrap several coils of the flossing material about their forefinger to prevent slippage. Unfortunately, this necessitates considerable waste of the flossing material. Moreover, such wrapping may become painful, as the flossing material is worked between the teeth and also may cut off blood circulation to the finger tip. To overcome these objections, numerous types of dental flossing tools have been proposed. Unfortunately, most of the prior art dental flossing tools have been relatively bulky, complex and expensive. Thus, none of the prior art dental flossing tools have been entirely satisfactory.