How Not to Make Homemade Toothpaste
[Here’s where I tried again: Homemade Toothpaste Part Deux]
Homemade toothpaste is one of the easiest natural concoctions you can make. In fact, it can be too easy. Baking soda and water. Baking soda and water in the bathroom will help you keep this out of the landfill:
But it will also produce this from your four-year-old:
Apparently I’m a few ingredients short of success. The adults in our family can handle the straight soda solution but I risk destroying my oldest’s one good habit by removing her tasty, minty toothpaste. And the ONLY reason the toddler lets me near her teeth is because of the sweet treat she thinks I’m giving her. Clearly I’m going to have to introduce a few friends:
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- Stain remover, meet…
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- …flavoring agent, mentha longifolia.
Since the simplest option was a no-go, I’m going to need to figure out how to make essential oil out of the one thing we have too much of in the garden: mint. Then maybe I can start a weekly rotation of the homemade stuff on the kids. Until then we stick with tube and accept another ZW Fail.
How will you ensure the girls get fluoride? Drink the water? Fembot and I have non-fluoride toothpaste, but I drink Crystal-Lite made of the tap water.
Well, this is an excellent question and an issue the hubs and I discuss regularly, even though the girls still have their baby teeth. We filter the tap water with a filter that excludes fluoride. But then Albuquerque water has a relatively low (for better and for worse) level of fluoride. We also use a mouthwash with fluoride and the oldest knows not to swallow it. I don't know — maybe we'll continue to use commercial fluoride toothpaste, but less of it? Using the homemade stuff a couple times a week? I really dislike the toothpaste tube — it's straight-up trash and I haven't found any compostable tubes yet. But we don't have dental insurance so good dental hygiene is understandably important to us. Thanks for the question. I'll address fluoride when figure out how to make some tastier paste.
Hey, the back of our Tom's of Maine toothpaste tube says it can be recycled through some "Terracyle" program or something like that. I'm about to leave the house so can't look it up. Maybe just a different toothpaste?
I was wrong, I did have a minute. Check it out: http://zerowasteboxes.terracycle.com/
I think this is how it works: you get a box from Terracycle and fill it with items in your "brigade". In this case it's the Tom's of Maine Brigade. Fill the box with spent toothpaste tubes and caps, mouthwash bottles, floss containers, etc. Then send it back for credit that can be used for charities. I'm not sure if there is a cost. I think I will try it, I don't where I will put the box and I know I won't be sending things like mouthwash bottles because I can recycle the here in town. I'm skeptical but intrigued.
Haha… it doesn't seem very tasty 🙂 Thank you for sharing I will try it for sure!
🙂 Best of luck! Let me know how it goes!
I am also using rest Pro-Health Whitening toothpaste. Thanks for sharing this interesting article.
Now if we could only get Procter & Gamble to step up their recycling efforts like Tom's of Maine…
Just an FYI that while topical fluoride (i.e. in toothpaste or mouthwash) seems to have benefits to the teeth, there's no dental benefit to consuming it via the water you drink.