toothpaste

I'm exploring a world I've never explored before...the world of toothpaste. Exciting, I know!

When I went through all my dental work, my teeth were so sensitive that the regular toothpaste I used hurt SO much I couldn't stand it. N and I started using only Arm & Hammer toothpaste a long time ago (before my teeth started hurting, I thought it was awesome). I guessed it was the mint in it--that cold, tingling sensation--that really caused the pain. It was an impressively intense pain. So I went on a search for mint-free toothpaste.

We happened to be going to Trader Joe's the next day (we go there regularly to stock up on their brown rice milk...it's full of fiber, not expensive, and doesn't taste like "water with white in it" like regular rice milk does), and we stopped to look at their toothpaste. They have two kinds of "all-natural" toothpaste--peppermint (ew) and fennel/propolis/myrrh (wha?).

Anyway, I decided to try the myrrh kind out. An extra bonus was that it had no added sweeteners, and I always felt like regular toothpaste was too sweet for me. I fully expected it to taste like crap instead of sweet, but it doesn't! It actually tastes...good! It's altogether a neutral flavor with just a hint of sweetness from whatever else they put in there (the myrrh?). The licorice scent to it leaves you with a very nice clean feeling to your mouth without having that overwhelming mint taste that ruins everything else you eat for the next half hour.

I thought I had found an awesome thing, but I was still worried about how the toothpaste was "fluoride-free." This was my first foray into putting more than 2 seconds of thought into what toothpaste I should use, so I certainly did not understand why toothpaste that didn't have fluoride should even exist in the first place. Wasn't fluoride kind of the point of using toothpaste?

So, after some research, I found out that there are lots of Tom's of Maine-type people out there who think fluoride is toxic and should never be anywhere near the body, but practically all dentists advise against using a non-fluoridated toothpaste. My personal dentist wanted me to use a special $30/tube toothpaste that had 40x the fluoride regular toothpaste does since I'm so prone to cavities. I'm not the kind of person who thinks everything out there is toxic to me, so I want my fluoride. Give it to me! But...not a mint-flavored one! And preferably one that isn't sweetened! Can I have a regular fluoridated toothpaste that isn't overly flavored?

That's the new search that I'm on. If you find a toothpaste with fluoride that isn't minty or artificially sweetened...let me know.