I’m choosing to make my own toothpaste because the toothpaste tubing is an unnatural product to dispose of, if you compare to paper you can compost or glass and big plastic containers you can reuse… there are health reasons too but for me it’s more about the packaging. There are natural pastes in glass jars you can get from health shops but they come at a price.
The ingredients and method are simple:
Mix the dry ingredients first and the wet last, playing with consistency you’d prefer:
- 6 tablespoons bentonite clay
- 2 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon cloves
- 4 tablespoons melted coconut oil or more
- 20 drops essential peppermint oil if you’d like
This is my first film guys so please don’t judge me too harshly, it’s such an amateur flick and I in no way can compete with those fancy vloggers out there (yet), there’s the fact we filmed portrait and not landscape, me in my slippers and Madison keeping it interesting, but I do hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it and sharing it with you all.
What is pretty awesome is you may have these items in your pantry already but if not and you need to go buy you’ll find uses for the products further along on this journey, be it coconut oil for face, body, lips or peppermint oil for headaches, or cinnamon in your coffee, bentonite clay for a detox or mask, and bicarb for a myriad of uses when one starts searching, so the products will not go to waste.
I’ve since evolved in my shopping for products you see in this video.
I now purchase spices in my own jars from Food Lover’s Market so no box or plastic.
I bought a 1.5kg coconut oil and the container could be taken back to the supplier to be filled up again (it’s a bigger plastic instead of smaller ones needed more often).
Essential oils last a long time – I haven’t needed a new one as yet – but I am going to ask the Holistic Emporium if they’d fill my bottles when next I need – one will only know if we ask.
Mark quickly gave up on the homemade toothpaste and was like, “I support all your craziness but I’m going to get myself some Aquafresh”.
I on the other hand am like a die hard and not going to waste anything (that being said I use his toothpaste occasionally).
It’s grainy so what I do is smear it around my teeth and then I brush – you really do get used to the texture. I have found that my teeth/ breath is fresher the next morning compared to when I brush with store stuff.
I have to tell you though that it has caused one tooth of mine to be sensitive/ pain after use. Murphy’s Law though as I chatted to zerowastechef about it and how I may need a different recipe or try something else, what I did was I wouldn’t directly apply the paste to this tooth but still brush as normal, and since then I’ve had no problems using the paste or with this tooth… and I’ve been reminded from my vid – use a pea size makes sense because bicarb can be harsh if overdosed.
For now I am finishing up my homemade paste and I may then lookup another recipe or tweak this one a bit with a tad less bicarb.
I say give it a try and see how you fair but stop if you notice abnormalities.
Enjoy this clip of Mark for a little extra laugh:
I got the toothpaste recipe from The Zero Waste Chef. I highly recommend you guys follow her on social media platforms and check out her website! She is a lovely lady whom I’ve messaged once or twice and she’s responsive and friendly.
Until next time…
waste less • refuse more
