"Others are fine in this respect, and are quite OK to use instead of a swab, although they will not go so near the crown cork."

I would be carefull about saying a statement like that without going into details.

It is one thing to use one as a swab, but most people leave it in the inside of they`re flute after doing this. Not good... I generally don`t recommend using them at all.

I hope I made that point in the rest of my post. However the issue is very climate related. In some climates there is little or no condensation in a flute anyway.

Toothpaste really works, I`v e been using it for a period of time now. Not only it cleans off anything that a piece of polishing clothes can`t scrub off, it also gives your flute a much shinier look!

Just be careful of using toothpaste on a silver plated flute. It is very abrasive and will take of the plating.

I have a silver cloth for mine, which I bought from a music shop ages ago. It`s good - makes it nice and shiny and you can wet it slightly if there`s more of a tarnish to wipe off. No problem.

Toothpaste!!!!! No way! Scratchy stuff! wrong chemicals

I use toothpaste a good percentage of the time. It is a great solvent for many tough stains on the flute.

Back to the Padsaver bit. The whole flute section got our heads chewed off when the director found out we kept them in the cases.
It turns out you`re to run them thorugh the flute (carefully in the mouthpiece) and then store them seperatly other wise, it`s be pointless to run them through at all becuase the mousture`s still in the flute, if you store the padsaver in the flute.