The Awesome Power of Baby Powder

Back last September I had a new wrist brace cast by Barry MacKinnon at Island Orthotics. The first time I went to use it I found a fatal flaw that prevented it from working: the “squeegyness” of the newly-cast space-age material the brace was cast from preventing my wrist from easily gliding back and forth on my desk.

A quick call to Barry produced a quick solution: he told me to go and buy some baby power and dust the brace with it. I did this, and it immediately solved the problem (although it introduced a new “office smells like baby nursery” problem; I could live with that, though).

I recent months I’ve been noticing that my otherwise-amazing Apple Mighty Mouse wasn’t smoothly gliding about my desk as it used to, and I reasoned that the awesome power of baby powder might help here too, so I washed and thoroughly dried off the mousing area of my desk and then sprinkled a small amount – about 1/8th of a teaspoon – of baby power on the desk and swooshed it all about.

Baby Powder + Mouse = Easy Glide

I’m happy to report that the mouse glides about as never before.

Oddly, I have no recollection of using baby powder on actual baby Oliver when he was young; perhaps we did and I wasn’t aware, or perhaps the maladies it cures were solved otherwise.

Comments

thejypsy's picture
thejypsy on May 9, 2011 - 18:34 Permalink

The idea of putting crushed rock on my babies bums never made sense to me. I recall once buying some for some non-baby reason, likely craft related, can’t remember now just what. I wonder if a more natural, unscented product would do the same job (http://www.greatcanadiansoap.c…

DerekMac's picture
DerekMac on May 9, 2011 - 20:21 Permalink

There are two kinds of ‘baby’ powder on the market.
The ‘crushed rock’ stuff, also referred to as ‘talcum’ powder, still exists, but you can also get baby powder made entirely from cornstarch. The most popular powder company, Johnson’s, makes both.
Talcum variant.

Cornstarch variant.

We always used the latter on our baby (who is now nine) whenever chafing ensued.

thejypsy's picture
thejypsy on May 9, 2011 - 20:53 Permalink

DerekMac, my youngest is twice your child’s age and my oldest is almost 3 times older. I believe rock was the only choice way back then….

Oliver's picture
Oliver on May 10, 2011 - 23:07 Permalink

Rocks aren’t natural? Who knew? Doesn’t the bible say “From dusting to dusting?”

thejypsy's picture
thejypsy on May 11, 2011 - 01:33 Permalink

It was the “Parfum” I was referring to (the less natural commercial baby powder ingredient)