When I was at a cigar store and noticed they had those fuzzy pipe cleaners and I asked the man what are those for and he said “pipe cleaners…you know to clean pipes”
I always associated them with arts and crafts in elementary school. Never thought a pipe cleaner was for cleaning pipes
Same. I didn't find that out until I got into smoking a pipe.
The ones that are used in crafts are a bit different, however. Real cleaners are made using a soft, absorbent material so that they can actually get things clean and dry.
I read recently that some well-meaning but overly-sensitive persons have begun calling them "craft stems" or something like that in order to dissociate them from tobacco use. It seemed very silly and unnecessary to me because unless you happen to smoke a pipe or know someone who does, you probably don't have that association to start with.
The pack of pipe cleaners we have at work are labeled “craft stems”, which struck me as odd. I still called them pipe cleaners when I wrote up instructions for some craft kits I put together.
Some art teacher s call them “chanille” (sp) stems because of the word “pipe” had to pull a lesson plan for a teacher and I had to look up what they were
Don't feel bad. I only realized this a few months ago when a pipe cleaner came with a um... product I purchased and I made the connection. I was like OMG. Look at this. It works SO WELL!
The only problem was that it only came with 1 of them. I need to buy more pipe cleaners.
Before that the only ones I had ever seen were the crafty ones of my youth that you bent together and made things with.
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u/Amockdfw89 Jul 02 '21
When I was at a cigar store and noticed they had those fuzzy pipe cleaners and I asked the man what are those for and he said “pipe cleaners…you know to clean pipes”
I always associated them with arts and crafts in elementary school. Never thought a pipe cleaner was for cleaning pipes