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Choosing the family toothpaste: How hard can it be?
Brush twice a day. Floss. Hit the dentist every year or so for a battery-powered cleaning and a once-over and voila, dental health. Pretty straightforward, huh? Not so fast, it turns out. Just finding a toothpaste this summer for the four people in my family proved to be a time-consuming affair with a bump or two in the road. Makes cleaning your 1 year-old's teeth with a wet washcloth seem e-a-s-y.
Why so complicated? I wish I could just say fluoride, 'cause let's face it, that's complicated enough. But no. Then there's the other ingredients. The ones you can't pronounce. The ones that should be safe because they're in your toothpaste. But these days, who knows?
Fluoride. Now this one can be a bit confusing and at times controversial if it’s in your community water supply. But since we’re just talking toothpaste, it’s simpler: avoid toothpaste with fluoride until your child is around 6 years old - when she's less likely to swallow it. There are plenty of fluoride-free options on the shelves.
The myriad other ingredients. Now here's where I head straight to our Skin Deep database because - shhh, don't tell anyone - I really don't want to spend the time or bandwidth to master the various ingredients and their health effects. Got other things to do, thanks. Plus, once you toss the box, conveniently the ingredients aren't listed on the tube. Those industry marketing folks are really slick.
So this whole project began when my son was gifted two HUGE boxes of Kid's Sparkle Fun Flavor Crest. Which he of course l-o-v-e-s. So much so that when informed of my plan to convert it into a household cleanser he hid it. It is still in hiding, in fact. Such is the power of added 'flavor' and blue dye no. 1 (or blue 1, as the label reads; note the convenient absence of the word dye). To soften the blow, I allowed him a trip to the grocery store to pick out a tasty toothpaste that met my standards.
He agreed and off we went, after a quick investigation in the kids' toothpaste section of Skin Deep, where I was only able to gather some key but very useful facts since both kids were climbing on me (my favorite way to do research - you?):
- Our current toothpaste rated far too high on the hazard scale for my liking (why brush my teeth with something moderately hazardous when I don't have to?).
- Don't pick a brand, pick a specific product, because hazard ratings differ across brands.
- Not all bad sounding ingredients are actually bad. Some of the ones I was certain would hit 10 were 0s, 1s and 2s. Pleasant surprise. Also goes to show how tricky it can be to decipher a label these days.
- Don't be fooled by a 'natural' brand, since in my searching one natural brand earned a higher hazard score than the non-natural one. Now there's a whole other conversation about green labeling!
So our bathroom cabinet now holds not one, not two, but three separate tubes of toothpaste (hazard ratings 2, 2 and 3). Low on a 10-point scale, but not hazard free. And none of them cheap, mind you. So, just like when I searched high and low for BPA-free sippy cups earlier this summer, my toothpaste journey has ended with an eye toward something simpler and cheaper – making my own. And I am not a make-your-own mama. Just ask my husband. But it has an appeal, doesn’t it? I could have made at least three healthier tubes worth in the time it took me to land those three commercial tubes in our house, you know?
Photo by Phil Scoville.
« Book review: “Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children" |
Comments
Hi,
It took myself and the kids to get used to using natural toothpaste, but now we feel much better for it and normal toothpaste just tastes awful.
My sensitive teeth feel better as well.
Posted by: Sarah Heenan | August 27, 2008 12:09 PM
Can you share the ones you chose? :)
Posted by: Gidget | August 27, 2008 3:25 PM
I feel your pain! I have been going through the toothpaste search myself this summer and have yet to settle on one. It's amazing how the EWG database changes your choices.
Posted by: Linda | August 27, 2008 3:28 PM
Thanks for the helpful post. However, I don't understand why one wouldn't want to spend as much time as possible to master all the ingredients and their health effects. There are no shortcuts to knowledge. Either the public is educated or else, if we simply have behavioristically trained consumers who avoid certain things but don't really know why, there is a greater chance that companies can fool them again.
Posted by: Ina | August 29, 2008 3:04 PM
Ina, That is an excellent point, thanks for raising it. If people have the inclination and time, I think it's an admirable and responsible approach to learn about the ingredients and their adverse health effects. The reason for my comment on seeking the easy way out has to do with my strong wish that we didn't have to research every product we buy to determine whether it's safe for our families. Also, I'd really, really like to do other things with my time - like read with my kids, volunteer in their schools, garden, you name it.
That said, here at EWG we work hard to share complicated chemical and environmental health info in a way that people can easily digest if they want to. If they don't - and there are plenty who don't - we've created SkinDeep and other tip sheets as an easy tool to help them buy safer products, too. Something for everyone!
I admire your approach and agree that informed consumers are a critical piece in all this. Won't it be nice when the Kid Safe Chemicals Act passes and we have a whole lot fewer unsafe chemicals to worry about? Learn more about that critical piece here: www.ewg.org/kidsafe.
Posted by: Lisa @ EWG | September 1, 2008 4:26 PM