Oral care is one of the most essential parts of our daily routine. Most of us like to start and end our day with cleaning our teeth and making sure our teeth and gums are healthy, free of any bad bacteria, and have fresh breath.
One of the most crucial parts of the routine is oral care products, which we blatantly put in our mouths without knowing exactly what's in them. If we ask ourselves, Do I have any idea about all the ingredients present in my toothpaste? The answer for most of us would be, Not exactly!
Glands in our oral cavity absorb everything and anything directly into our bloodstream, extremely faster than our skin. Which means we should be very careful about the ingredients of our toothpaste and avoid chemicals just as we avoid our skin and hair products.
Long-term exposure (brushing every day for your entire lifetime is pretty long-term!) to all such chemicals can lead to many side effects and serious diseases, even while leading a healthy lifestyle.
Toxic Chemicals
Many oral care products contain harsh toxic chemicals such as sodium lauryl sulphate(SLS), fluoride, triclosan, parabens, artificial colours, artificial sweeteners, titanium dioxide, and many more. Yes! The same chemicals we have been trying to avoid in shampoo, face cream, moisturiser, and whatnot are present in our toothpaste!!! These chemicals are not only harmful to teeth and gums but can also cause severe damage to overall health.
Here is a list of a few chemicals to avoid at any cost:
Sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS): A detergent commonly used in toothpaste to generate foam, is a toxic chemical that the cosmetic industry is also slowly trying to get rid of. It has no intrinsic value in maintaining oral hygiene and can cause mouth ulcers, canker sores, and other side effects.
Artificial colours: Artificial colours are petroleum products used to colour toothpaste a certain colour to make it look appealing, attractive, and more marketable. Artificial colours have no intrinsic value in maintaining oral hygiene and can be found in oral care products written with codes on the packaging, like CI 16035 (red 40) and CI 12490 (red 5). Many of the artificial colours used are highly debatable, and a few of them are banned in various parts of the world.
Artificial sweeteners: Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin are used in oral care products to improve the taste and add sweetness to cover the bad taste of all other chemicals. These sweeteners can cause tooth decay and have been linked to weight gain. Some people may also have allergic reactions to these sweeteners.
Titanium Dioxide: A chemical that is highly debatable and about which the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has raised concern, is used to give a bright white colour to the products. Regular exposure to this white-colouring chemical would surely not make your teeth white but would increase the chances of toxicity in your body.
Carrageenan: Carrageenan is added in toothpaste as a thickener to create consistency and to thicken the paste to achieve it's desired look and feel. It intrinsically does not provide any benefit for oral hygiene and only increases concerns as it may lead to formation of degraded carrageenan, a toxic impurity, when reacted with few stomach acids.
And many other toxic chemicals are added into the toothpaste which are banned in various countries, have no intrinsic benefit apart from increasing the visual appearance or taste of the product. The next time you purchase an oral care product for yourself or your family, make sure to read the ingredient list.
Plastic Waste
Most oral care products come in plastic or are made of plastic, like toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and tongue scrapers.
1.5 billion toothpaste tubes and approximately 3 billion toothbrushes are discarded worldwide each year in landfills or in our precious oceans. These toothpaste tubes or toothbrushes take 500+ years just to break down into small components and continue polluting our environment. Toothpaste tubes which are made of multi layer plastic are never recycled because it is difficult to clean a toothpaste tube and get recyclable plastic from multi layer plastic, as this process is tedious and expensive, tubes are dumped in landfills or our precious oceans. Furthermore, toothbrushes are not behind. They are also non-recyclable, as they are made of non-recyclable materials like non-recyclable plastic handles, rubber grips, and nylon bristles. Moreover, if any toothbrush has a component that can actually be recycled, it becomes a tedious task to separate the bristles, multiple plastic components, and rubber grips from each other and recycle the plastic.
To address these problems, we are coming up with safe products to cater to the need for SLS-free toothpaste, fluoride-free toothpaste, herbal toothpaste, and taking care of your oral hygiene with eco-conscious products. We are using the rich knowledge of Ayurveda to develop herbal toothpaste tabs and pack them in eco-friendly packaging. Herbs converted into herbal powder used in our toothpaste tabs are naturally occurring ingredients and come with their own unique taste, colour, and feel. We do not add any artificial sweetener, colour, or flavour to make our toothpaste tabs look, feel, or taste a certain way. Herbs like Neem, Babul, Miswak, Triphala, Haridra, and many more are mixed using knowledge of Ayurveda and combined together to form a powerful herbal formula to take care of all your oral care needs. Furthermore, it is packed in reusable and recyclable packaging to reduce its environmental impact.
At present, we have one product available: All in One tooth tabs, which is developed to be an all-rounder product to tackle all your oral health problems like clean teeth, plaque protection, gum bleeding, and bad breath. Check it out here.
Allow us to help you come closer to your sustainability goals and start your day with clean ingredients.
Because we care.
We are,
Toothfully yours
