What goes into your body makes a big difference in how healthy you are. If you read the ingredients in oral care products such as toothpaste and mouthwash, you will be shocked to find that many of the products that advertise themselves as “natural” have multiple things in them that are harmful to your health. You can rest assured that our 100% natural mouthwash and toothpaste for sensitive teeth is not only clean and green, but effective as well.
Finally, a Natural Alternative for Sensitive Teeth
No Fluoride
Most commercial mouthwash and toothpaste promote the “benefits” of fluoride, we advertise that there is no fluoride in any of our products. This might be confusing to some, but there is a reason why ours do not contain fluoride. I consider myself a “naturalist,” therefore, I do not want to eat chemicals, slather them on my skin, or put them in my mouth. If it has a poison label on it or is found in pesticide, I choose to not put it in my body. There are plenty of healthy alternatives to naturally remineralize teeth without using toxic chemicals. Fluoride has been widely used for over 55 years. As a society, have we not invented any other ingredients that can be effective in strengthening teeth and not be hazardous to one’s health? Of course we have! It’s called hydroxyapatite.
In America, we are seeing more and more evidence that people (especially children), are getting too much fluoride. Synthetic fluoride (the byproduct of the phosphate industry) is added to city water, toothpaste, and mouthwash. Fluoride is a mutagen, a halogen, carcinogen and pesticide. Too much fluoride can discolor teeth and make your bones rigid, causing fractures to happen more easily. It also reduces IQ and can even cause thyroid issues in children. For these reasons, we didn't add any fluoride or other chemicals to our oral care products.
No SLS
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) is in pretty much every skin care, hair care, and oral care product you pull off a grocery store shelf. While it is used in all these products as a foaming agent and surfactant, it strips all the natural oils and healthy minerals off of your skin, hair, and teeth. Your body has it's own unique ecosystem, and using products with SLS in them damages that natural protection. Many people are actually allergic to SLS and don’t know it.
When SLS is used in oral hygiene products like toothpaste, it may make you feel like there are little cleaning gnomes inside your mouth scrubbing away at all the nooks and crannies in between your teeth but it can irritate your gums and make you more likely to get canker sores. SLS is also used in home-cleaning products. We don't think you really want that in your mouth!
No Artificial Colors
Many artificial colors can be damaging to your body. Some artificial colors, such as Red 40, are known carcinogens and can cause excitability or irritability in children. Let's just leave those artificial colors where they belong..in the trash! Certainly not anything that goes in your mouth. Our mint and cinnamon line use something called raw Croton lechleri sap which is a natural coagulant and gives the color of the mouthwash a brownish/red color. ANYTHING can stain your teeth so if you feel you may be getting discoloration, simply use straight baking soda or our natural whitening toothpaste and it is removable. Things that help reduce stain on teeth after having things like coffee, tea, etc, would be to rinse your mouth out with water.
No Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial sweeteners are often used in oral hygiene products like mouthwash because these sweeteners make the product taste better. No one likes the flavor of mealy all-natural, toothpastes or mouthwashes whose bitter tastes remain in your mouth long after you've used them. While these artificial sweeteners are used instead of actual sugar because they are not supposed to decay your teeth, they can still be harmful to your oral health.
A lot of artificial sweeteners are combined with different kinds of acids, such as citric acid. While the sweetener itself might not damage your teeth, the acids they are combined with will damage your teeth over time. They will erode the enamel on your teeth. If you have sensitive teeth, we don't want to add anything to our mouthwash that will add to that sensitivity, so we've chosen to just leave these sweeteners at the door where they belong. We use natural ingredients like stevia and xylitol to not only sweeten, but help raise the pH of the mouth as well. Our products are pH balanced which is super important because if your saliva drops below a 5.5 that’s how you can get a cavity. Most commercial mouthwashes have a pH of 5 or lower. Consumer beware!
No GMOs or Preservatives
We live in a world of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and products filled with preservatives. Everyone wants their food and hygiene products to have a long shelf-life, so the companies that make these products pump them full of preservatives. These preservatives are not good for your body and can create some pretty serious issues over time. These issues include poor digestion, obesity, irritation, and the list could go on.
For those with sensitive teeth, all these unknown added ingredients can irritate your teeth. Some people can have serious reactions to the preservatives in their mouthwash/toothpaste, and it may take them some time to figure out the root cause. We don't want this to happen to you, so like all of the other suspicious ingredients listed here, we chose to leave them out.
No TEA or Carbomer
TEA and Carbomers are agents used in many mouthwashes and hair and skin products to make them more gel-like. They can also contribute to the whitening process of your teeth. We all want white teeth, so why didn't we add these ingredients to our mouthwash?
Like many of the other ingredients listed here that we didn't add to our mouthwash, these ingredients can strip the good away with the bad. So in whitening your teeth, you're damaging the enamel on your teeth and irritating your gums in the process. While TEA is not a known carcinogen, some of the ingredients in it are, so we've decided it's just best to steer clear of these ingredients altogether.
No Abrasive Agents
While your teeth feel nice and hard, so are the rocks in the Grand Canyon. Constant abrasion from water and sand continues to deteriorate the walls of the Grand Canyon, and the same will happen to your teeth if you use toothpaste with abrasive ingredients in it. Even the strongest of teeth will break down over time. Many toothpastes are made with things like hydrated silica to help get your teeth feeling extra clean and ensure you have fresh breath. Check out the RDA value on the toothpaste you’re currently using. Anything above a 70 is considered abrasive. Some of your whitening toothpastes can be over 200, which is like using liquid sandpaper to brush with. Please avoid ingredients like charcoal or clay as they can seriously harm your enamel over time.
If you have sensitive teeth, the last thing you need is for your mouth to feel like it was sand-blasted. There are other ways to make your teeth and your mouth feel clean and fresh, so that's the path we have chosen for our toothpaste.
No Alcohol
Again, in the search for that amazing clean feeling, many drug-store mouthwashes contain alcohol because how on Earth could there possibly be anything bad left after that burning river of liquid swishes through your mouth? You're right: the bad bacteria is probably all gone, but as that burning river rushed through your mouth carrying the bad bacteria away, it also carried all the good bacteria away disrupting your oral microbiome. As I mentioned previously, be aware of the pH. Are you swishing with acid? The alcohol in mouthwash is usually around 27% which according to the MSDS sheet, can cause throat and mouth cancer.
Alcohol also dries out your gums, lips, and even your tongue, which actually can contribute to bad breath: the opposite effect of what it is supposed to do! We decided that alcohol in mouthwash is not the way to go, no matter how much you like that burning feeling. If you've got sensitive teeth, you probably don't like that burning feeling anyway!
No Parabens
Parabens are another ingredient in literally everything. They are in your food, your drinks, your shampoo, your toothpaste, and yes, you guessed it, your drugstore oral care products. Parabens are in 85% of the health and beauty items you use. This is what makes us different. Our products contains no parabens.
Parabens are known hormone disruptors. Hormones are already so delicate that the last thing we want to do is disturb them. Parabens have been linked to breast cancer and can cause reproductive problems. In Europe, some parabens have already been outlawed. We left them out, and our mouthwash and toothpaste is just as great without them!
If avoiding all of these harmful ingredients sounds good to you, check out our 100% natural mouthwash Simply Silver Mouthwash. If you're in the Tampa, Florida area, our mouthwash can be found in several local stores. If not, our online shop has our mouthwash available and you can get it shipped straight to your door. We know your sensitive teeth will love our mouthwash, and we hope you do too!
Blessings,
Heather the Hygienist, CBDH, CRDH