Toothpaste Trials: Part Oops

We are now nearly three weeks into our homemade toothpaste adventure, and overall I would still give it a thumbs up–I’ve completely adapted to the new taste/texture and I think my teeth are noticeably whiter. And of course the Li’l Miss continues to totally dig the strong peppermint flavor with bitter, chalky undercurrents (so subtle! so rich!).

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I have to tell you that the other day, when I went to make a second adult batch, we hit a small…blip.

Turns out the stevia packets I had bought were not made out of pure stevia, but included some dextrose in the mix. So yeah, I was brushing my daughter’s teeth partly with sugar for the past two weeks. After having a complete panic attack full of hair-pulling and chest-beating and visions of her teeth falling out all over the place while child services drags her away from her hippie-freak of a mother, and then running out and buying the most expensive all-natural kids’ brand I could find in order to try to “reverse” the effects, I calmed down a bit and decided that this small…oversight…on my part didn’t need to mean the end of the entire project. (I realized part of why I was so upset was the thought that if any natural-naysayers ever found out it would give them ammo to be all, “SEE? This is why it doesn’t pay to go rogue with your personal hygiene.”)

So I remain undaunted. Especially after, in a moment of weakness before the panic attack was completely over, I tried to make myself buy a tube of standard toothpaste for the adults, and I just…could…not…do it. Not even Tom’s of Maine (which is too expensive/bland anyway) comes without that extra special dose of sodium lauryl sulfate. Meanwhile, I looked around all the nearby stores more carefully for pure stevia but nobody seemed to carry it. I might order some at some point, but Larms pointed out that really, there was so little in the recipe to begin with I might not miss it. And sure enough, I whipped up an unsweetened batch soon after and couldn’t really tell a difference. So I will just sally forth without it.

And Li’l Miss will be back on the kid version, sans sweetener, as soon as her emergency designer brand runs out.

As for my husband, while he has been a REALLY good/supportive sport about all the other stuff I’ve been doing, the toothpaste is a bit much for him, and I think he’s going to go back to the regular kind as soon as he gets a chance to buy a new tube. Suit yourself, babe! But don’t come crying to me the next time you get a canker sore!

(And for those of you interested in tinkering with your own recipes, at some point during all that mess, when I returned to the interwebs for reassurance/more advice, I came across this website on various “natural” dentrifices and how/why they work, which the dork in me found to be utterly fascinating.)

Advertisement