Toothpaste

I love my toothpaste. Like, for real, love it. We used Crest Extreme Herbal Mint (the paste in a tube, not the liquid gel) ... mmm just thinking of it makes me want to go brush my teeth. I brush at least 3 times a day and I just love how fresh this toothpaste makes my mouth feel. Alas, our toothpaste scores a 4 on EWG. While not horrible, I am trying to move towards things in the green zone (0-2), so I decided to switch toothpastes.

The ingredients list for my old Crest toothpaste is long, so if you want to check it out go here.
The things in the yellow zone are:
Sodium Fluoride (0.243%) - scores a 6
Flavor - scores a 4 (a general term that could be any number of ingredients)
Blue 1 Aluminum Lake - scores a 3
Yellow 10 Aluminum Lake - scores a 3

I switched over to Tom's of Maine Clean & Gentle Anticavity SLS-Free toothpaste. Ditching the SLS in my toothpaste was important to me. It only scores a 1 in the EWG database, but I know studies show SLS to be a skin irritant and it causes cancer in studies of prolonged exposure in animals. I don't think it's super dangerous necessarily, but SLS is in so many products (soap, shampoo, body wash, toothpaste -- anything that has suds) that I'd like to decrease exposure to it if possible.

The ingredients in Tom's SLS-free toothpaste that rank in the yellow zone are:
Sodium monoflurophosphate - scores a 3
Acacia senegal gum - scores a 3

I am not willing to give up flouride in my toothpaste. I think the benefits of a flouride toothpaste far out number the possible issues (if there are any). I don't understand why Sodium flouride (the form in Crest) scores a 6 when Sodium monoflourophosphate (the form in Tom's) scores a 3. My husband (a dentist) isn't sure either. EWG claims sodium flouride has cancer risk, but I have been reading some stuff off of PubMed that suggests the two chemicals are basically the same and don't pose a hazard. Who knows.

Cost comparison on Amazon (pack of 2):
Tom's of Maine: $10.37 for a pack of 2 ($1.10/ounce), free shipping
Crest Extreme Herbal Mint: $3.10 for 1 tube (52 cents/ounce) + $2.99 shipping, but obviously you could get it at the store and avoid shipping

Convenient access:
Crest Extreme Herbal Mint is easy to get at any Target, drugstore, grocery store, etc. Tom's is easy to find, but not this particular kind. I had to get it on Amazon.


I'm not going to lie, I miss the amazing way my mouth felt after using the Crest toothpaste. That being said, I've been using Tom's for a few weeks now and am getting used to it. I hated it for the first few days and then it kind of grew on me. It will never be better than Crest, but it's worth it to avoid the artificial flavor, dyes, and SLS.