All-Natural Homemade Toothpaste Recipe

This DIY toothpaste recipe is made with just four natural ingredients that are good for both your dental health and your bank account!

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I’m on a personal mission to replace every commercially-made product with toxic ingredients in our home with homemade alternatives made with natural ingredients. One-by-one, I’m getting closer every day.

It all began when I started making my own candles a few years ago. Next I learned how to make body butter, sugar scrubs, bath salts, hair wax and more, until last month I finally tried making my own homemade toothpaste with a few basic ingredients.

I’d thought about DIY-ing our own toothpaste for quite a while, ever since I learned that commercial toothpaste is not only unnecessary, but is also filled with artificial flavours, dyes, harmful substances and toxic ingredients that should never enter the human body, even if they do get spit right out!

Dangerous Ingredients in Commercial Toothpastes

Here are a few of the toxic ingredients you can find in store-bought toothpaste…

 

Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfate

A foaming agent that has been linked to skin irritation, canker sores and even interference with the way your taste buds function. “SLS” has also been known to be contaminated with known carcinogens like ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane which may cause cancer in humans.

Triclosan

Classified as a pesticide by the Environmental Protection Agency. Linked to thyroid imbalances, resistance to antibiotics and is a possible cancer-causing carcinogen. 

Artificial Colours & Synthetic Sweeteners

Commercial toothpaste is full of artificial colours like Blue No. 2, which has been linked to ADD and hyperactivity in children, and synthetic sweeteners like Aspartame, which has been linked to everything from headaches and depression to weight gain and heart disease.

Fluoride

While fluoride can help to fight tooth decay by strengthening tooth enamel, the health risks of ingesting too much fluoride span the gamut from headaches and diarrhea to thyroid problems to neurological problems to infertility. In reality, fluoride is a by-product of aluminum manufacturing that can also be found in pesticides. Yummy.

So ya, suffice it to say that I’ve been wanting to switch to a non-toxic toothpaste with safer, all-natural ingredients for some time, and while I have tried a couple all-natural toothpaste brands such as Tom’s of Maine and Young Living’s Thieves brand, those store-bought toothpastes are way too expensive for us to afford regularly in our daily routine. So I went with the only option I had left, and I made my own with simple ingredients.

How to Make Your Own Homemade Toothpaste

This DIY recipe is surprisingly quick and easy, plus it costs just a few cents per batch!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• coconut oil
• baking soda
• Stevia (or xylitol) 
• essential oils (clove, cinnamon, peppermint and/or spearmint)
• small jar (a Mason jar works great!)

What to Do

1. Melt coconut oil until it liquifies or becomes soft enough that you can easily mix it together with the other ingredients. You can do this in the microwave in a microwave-safe glass bowl or measuring cup, or in a double boiler on the stove.
2. Once coconut oil is melted, add the baking soda and Stevia and stir well to combine. Finally, add up to 40 drops of essential oils (I like to add 20 drops of clove oil and 20 drops of either cinnamon or peppermint). You can use less essential oils (or none at all if you don’t mind having a bland toothpaste), but the oils do add a nice flavour, like you’d expect from a store-bought toothpaste, and they also have some of their own health benefits, which I’ll go over below.
3. Stir well to blend in the essential oils, then pour or spoon mixture into a glass jar and let cool. I like to put my toothpaste in the fridge to help it cool more quickly so that the ingredients won’t have as much time to settle and separate. I usually give it a stir every 10-15 minutes or so as it’s cooling in order to make sure it doesn’t separate and maintains a smooth texture.

Once the toothpaste mixture has solidified, it’s ready to use! You can keep it in your bathroom and either dip your toothbrush into the mixture or spoon a little bit onto your toothbrush using a small spoon or popsicle stick. Use roughly the same amount of this homemade toothpaste as you would conventional toothpaste.

* Note: If it’s warm where you live, you might need to keep your toothpaste in the fridge so that it doesn’t melt. Coconut oil melts at 76ºF (24ºC).

Benefits of making all-natural toothpaste at home

When you make your own toothpaste at home, you’re not only avoiding the unhealthy additives found in most commercial toothpastes, you’re actually substituting ingredients with proven benefits when it comes to good oral health.

Coconut Oil for Healthy Teeth

Coconut oil is already renowned for being a powerhouse ingredient in food, but it’s no different when it comes to a healthy mouth.

Coconut oil “pulling” (the process of swishing coconut oil around in your mouth for a few minutes) gained popularity over the past few years, and for good reason. Coconut oil is thought to decrease plaque, whiten teeth and kill bad bacteria that can lead to tooth decay. It’s also an antioxidant and is anti-inflammatory and helps to maintain the proper PH balance in your mouth, which unfortunately can’t be said for some commercial whitening brands.

Baking Soda in Toothpaste

Baking soda could be used on its own as a toothpaste if you could stand the powdery texture and slightly salty taste. Like coconut oil, it’s also renowned as a whitener and has even been used in well-known commercial toothpastes due to its natural whitening properties. 

Baking soda is also an abrasive, which is great for removing plaque and scrubbing teeth clean!

Stevia/Xylitol

Both Stevia and xylitol are plant-based artificial sweeteners with no known side effects or dangers to human health. While neither of these sweeteners is harmful to dental or physical human health, xylitol has actually been shown to slow tooth decay and reduce gum disease. 

Essential Oils in Homemade Toothpaste

While essential oils aren’t necessary, they add a familiar “minty” flavour to homemade toothpaste and have the added benefit of being great for oral health. 

Clove oil, for example, is often associated with good oral health. It has antiviral, antibacterial and antimicrobial properties and can help to reduce toothache pain, protect teeth and gums from harmful bacteria and fight bad breath all at the same time.

Peppermint oil is another very effective killer of bad bacteria and one of the best natural breath fresheners around. 

Cinnamon oil has potent antimicrobial properties that help combat tooth decay and gum disease.

Spearmint oil is a strong antiseptic and is recognized as being a KidSafe oil, meaning it can be used in place of peppermint oil in toothpaste meant for kiddos. 

• Note: You should reduce amount of essential oil to 20 total drops per jar of homemade toothpaste when the toothpaste is intended for use by children. 

Full disclosure: My two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Evelyn has been using my cinnamon toothpaste and, to my pleasant surprise, she actually really likes it! While I technically shouldn’t recommend using essential oils orally on children as young as this, we personally have had no issues or ill effects from using this toothpaste on our own little one. It is, however, my legal obligation to recommend that you always talk to your doctor before using essential oils in homemade toothpaste made for young children, and to test a very small amount the first time to see if your child has any type of reaction.

So if you’re also on a mission to rid your own home of toxic ingredients in products and replace them with healthy, all-natural versions that actually work, then I highly recommend whipping up a batch of this all-natural homemade toothpaste.

I’ve been using this toothpaste (and nothing else) for over a month now and my teeth feel as clean as ever (and no bad breath either!). This is truly one of those homemade products that I would be quite happy to continue using indefinitely, which means one less toxin-filled commercial product on my shelves at home and one more thing I never have to buy from the store again.

Wishing you health, wealth and squeaky clean teeth… The all-natural way;)

 

 

 

 

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