There are simple steps one can take to reduce plastic use in our daily habits. A quick one that comes to mind is using soap bars instead of body wash from a pump-action plastic container. Another household plastic use that can be addressed is toothpaste. Unfortunately, unlike soap bars, commercial toothpaste does not come in cardboard boxes. So one approach is to make your own toothpaste, and just keep refilling the same container.

DIY Toothpaste

I was after something as simple as possible, I didn’t want to have to set up a chemistry lab every time I ran out of DIY toothpaste. Looking around the ‘net, the most straightforward DIY Toothpaste recipe was simply mixing bicarb with olive oil into a paste consistency.

So, I mixed a bit of bicarb with olive oil in one of those 50 ml sauce containers that you get when you buy takeaway. This worked well, however there were some issues. Firstly, I found the bicarb quite biting in my mouth. Secondly, when I ran out of toothpaste, making a new batch was messier and more time-consuming than I would have liked.

DIY Tooth Powder

I had seen commercial tooth powder in an eco-shop, but I never considered sing it because I had been using toothpaste for all of my life. So naturally I gravitated to the same method of tooth-cleaning substance delivery. However, having experimented with making my own toothpaste and toothpaste, I was ready to open my mind.

Looking around the ‘net, I found a simple recipe for tooth powder with 3 ingredients: bicarb, bentonite clay and xylitol. To add to that, I had seen commercial toothpaste boasting that it ‘contained activated charcoal’, so I thought why not add that to the mix. Now I had:

Bicarb - Ah yes, good old bicarb alias bicarbonate of soda, it cleans mattresses, carpets, pots and pans and so on. Intuitively one might think that it is too abrasive for teach, but not so according the American Dental Association.

Bentonite Clay - This is aged volcanic ash that has been used for its super-absorbent qualities for millenea.

Xylitol - As I mentioned, my first attempt with bicarb and olive oil gave a biting bicarb taste was overpowering and unpleasant. Adding xylitol as a non-sugar sweetner to the mix helps alleviate this.

Activated Charcoal - I didn’t want to go too hard on this, because although as I mentioned it is added to commercial toothpaste as a stain-removing additive, it can also wear down your tooth enamel.

After some experimentation, I settled for a teaspoon each of bicarb, bentonite clay and xylitol mixed in with a quarter teaspoon (or less) of activated charcoal, all mixed into a small 50 ml takeaway sauce container.

And there you have it, DIY tooth powder! It will significantly reduce your oral care related plastic use and is fun to make. One thing I should add is that if this is your first time using tooth powder, be warned: it gets a bit messy! But after a while you will get used to the consistency and be more careful than you would with toothpaste.