The benefits of Fluoride, detergents, and abrasives in toothpaste can be debatable depending on where you look, although most people say it’s fine, or beneficial for you. I’m no expert, but I do like to know what I’m putting in my body when I can help it, so I made a point of finding a toothpaste recipe that worked well for me. It discusses many of the common ingredients in commercial and DIY toothpastes, and potential risks, benefits, or harms.

After the bit of research I’ve done, I’ve come to conclude that while baking soda may not necessarily be bad, I don’t want to take the chance of it wearing down my enamel since I already have sensitive teeth at times. I’ll stick with the finer bentonite clay and sea salt, which is ‘gentle’ enough to dissolve as you brush. Coconut oil has many beneficial properties as an anti bacterial and anti fungal, in addition to having lots of vitamin E.

Home Made Toothpaste recipe:

2tbsp coconut oil

2tbsp bentonite clay

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

1-2 tsp water

essential oil to taste

Start with the coconut oil, then add in the bentonite and salt ontop, and do your best to mash it with a spoon until it is a uniform consistency. Add a little water as necessary until it is at your preferred thickness. Note that coconut oil goes from solid to liquid in a warm room, so it may be much thinner if you don’t keep the AC on in the summer or like your bathroom as a sauna.  Once you get the consistency right, add essential oil to taste. For a batch of this size, 5-10 drops should be enough. Good default flavors will be any variety of mint, or cinnamon, but you can get creative with a sweet orange, basil, lavender, rosemary, etc.

As a bonus, you can add activated charcoal to your toothpaste. Activated charcoal is known for pulling colors out of things, so it is a natural teeth whitener (you can brush just with activated charcoal as a whitening treatment if you want).  The easiest way to get some is to go to your local pharmacy store and buy a bottle of activated charcoal in pill form, it is commonly used to settle stomachs as it is a good absorbent. Just add half of a pill to your toothpaste, or use half a pill on your toothbrush as a tooth whitening treatment. Just make sure you do a good job of rinsing it down the drain as it is very obvious if you let it sit in the bowl (it’s black).