Quick question: How often do you think about your toothpaste? If your answer is a resounding, Uh, not really, let’s take a moment to chat about your trusty tube. Oral care is incredibly important: The smile is a pillar of the aesthetics of the face. Having bright teeth and healthy gums can transform an overall appearance. But it’s not just aesthetics—a healthy smile is vital for digestion and overall inflammation in the body. Seriously: Periodontal disease is linked to chronic, systemic inflammation in the body.
And considering you reach for your toothpaste twice a day to keep your teeth and gums healthy it’s certainly worth evaluating what sort of formula you’re using.
Enter: These high-quality, safe, and natural toothpastes. If you’re one to use natural and clean products elsewhere in your routine, it’s only—ahem—natural that you might want to consider a natural toothpaste as well. And the good news is that modern formulas are highly effective, come in a wide variety, and are about the same price as a standard tube.
Here, the best options according to the mbg editorial team.
As the leaders in clean beauty, we are diligent researchers into ingredients, formulas, and safety. We only recommend formulas we trust and would use ourselves.
We’re also experts in overall health and longevity. Given oral health is very closely connected to digestive health, circulatory health, respiratory health, and full-body inflammation—we believe that prioritizing oral hygiene is critical.
We also got this article and selections reviewed by functional dentist Meghna Dassani, DMD. Dassani is a specialist in sleep apnea, and her practice focuses on helping adult and pediatric patients with sleep-disordered breathing get the treatment they need to live healthier, happier lives. Before attending Goldman School of Dental Medicine at Boston University, Dassani operated a successful dental practice in Mumbai. For the past 18 years, she has been practicing in Houston, Texas.
There is no regulated definition of the word “natural” in the beauty or personal care industries. Often, it’s up to the brand to outline what they mean by it, what ingredients in their formulas are natural, and what they choose not to include.
At mindbodygreen, we most often recommend clean and natural-leaning formulas. To us, “clean” means products that only use safe, gentle, yet effective ingredients—and leave out ingredients that have questionable safety profiles. Clean ingredients can be both natural and lab-derived.
Natural ingredients are those that are extracted from the earth, such as minerals and botanicals. Many plant- and mineral-derived ingredients can be hugely beneficial for the body—sometimes more so than lab-derived ingredients. However, we do not think every formula needs to be 100% natural. In fact, there are many synthetic ingredients that are safe, effective, and useful.
