After catching a night of body-restorative zzzzzzzzz’s, you may feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed…but your taste buds (upon enduring a knock-down-drag-out battle throughout wee hours with seven tenacious species of anaerobic bacteria) await the sweet relief that only the toothbrush and its oral hygiene cavalry can bring. Unless you’ve been blessed with Barbie/Ken doll genetics that make your tongue impossibly vinyl and nonreactive to innate bacterial colonies, even the most oral-hygiene-dedicated among us are cursed with malodorous morning-EVIL lurking deep within our mouths.
So, 365 days a year (morning and evening), we crown our toothbrushes with a modest dollop of minty-fresh paste – a preparation that promises to obliterate all traces of the hideous halitosis that ails us. We whistle while we work, brushing diligently to decimate our unwelcome invaders and look forward to the moment 2 ½ minutes later when we can exhale on a loved one with unabashed gusto…who can ever get tired of THAT? Such a triumph! Look at me – my mouth is so fresh and clean!!! Now, who among us are actually aware of the fact that we continually bathe our teeth, tongue, gums and salivary glands with enough chemicals to warrant the Food and Drug Administration to slap a warning on each tube?
“Come on, I’ve been using this stuff for years and I’m doing fine – my dentist even gave me a clean bill of health!” Good for you – but before jump ship, secure in the notion that everything’s just fine and dandy, aren’t you just the least bit curious as to what some of those long names on your ‘toothpaste ingredients list’ actually do?
- HYDRATED SILICA: This material acts as a polishing agent, enabling us (with a little elbow grease) to lift food particles and stains off of our teeth. I’m not so sure we should be ingesting this stuff, though, considering that it is made from a crystallized compound found in sand, obsidian, flint and quartz. You know those little packets that are tucked into vitamin jars in order to absorb excess moisture (known as silica GEL) – they are hydrated silica’s evil step child, and they happen to be labeled as POISON!!
- SODIUM FLUORIDE: Yes, this is the same stuff that has been in most municipal water supplies for years and ensures that our teeth don’t rot away (pssst! it hardens tooth enamel), so it must be pretty safe, right? Then why has it also been used to kill rodents and insects – and WHY has the FDA classified it as a toxic drug? Studies attribute fluoride to a staggering list of ailments, including: skeletal fluorosis and chronic joint pain, thyroid issues, chronic insomnia, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, childhood mental retardation and low intelligence quotient…to name but a few.
- SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE: If this ingredient sounds familiar to you, it should…after all, it can be found in the myriad shampoos and body washes that decorate your shower, as well as in the detergent that you wash your clothing with. Guess what it does? It provides the ‘foaming power’ that we all know and love, and it also functions well as a surfactant (a component that enhances ‘spreadability’ and ‘increases wetness’). In other words, it helps to break down the molecular structure of dirt, grease, oil and YES, food particles. Acknowledged by the FDA and the American Cancer Society to be a known skin irritant, one has to question why on Earth we scrub our mouths out with it day after day?
Of course there are more natural choices out there…and one that springs to mind is brushing your teeth with plain ol’ baking soda. Aside from its perennially budget-friendly cost (generally under $1.00/box), it possesses many of the desired properties of commercial toothpastes without all of the chemical nastiness. As a salt-based acid, it completely neutralizes odors, offers gentle yet effective abrasion, and once you adapt to its astringently salty nature, it does impart a smooth and fresh feeling to your mouth. When I was growing up, my father convinced me to adapt to this no-frills tooth cleaner for about two years, and once I got past the initial shock of salt, my brain played tricks on me by making me think that a wet toothbrush dipped in Arm & Hammer actually tasted sweet. Give it a shot – you’ll see what I mean. It’s the weirdest sensation, but even if you don’t quite like the flavor, you will definitely enjoy the way that your teeth look and feel.
If you are not quite ready to use a naturally-sourced, known-and-loved leavening agent on your pearly whites, perhaps you’d like to whip up your own homegrown toothpaste! As you’ll see in the following recipes, there’s nary a lauryl sulfate or hydrated silica in sight — just a few essential oils and natural cleaning agents to get the job done. Once again, we can’t help but be reminded that sometimes, if you want something done the right way *(in as holistic a manner as possible)*, why not do it yourself???
• http://www.ultimate-cosmetics.com/beauty/homemade-recipes/toothpaste.htm
• http://www.simplyhomeremedies.com/homemade-toothpaste-recipes/
• http://www.idea-queen.com/toothpaste-recipe.html
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Calling all AgriGuiders!!! Please share your experiences with homemade toothpaste experiments and even natural toothpastes (available via such companies as Jason’s, Tom’s of Maine, etc.) below.
- Are you a veteran toothpaste-mixer-upper??
- Got a reliable recipe to share with us or a warning about what recipe/combination of ingredients to stay away from at all costs??
- Are any commercially-available “natural toothpastes” really the bees-knees??
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