Something You Should Know About Your Toothpaste

And this is on a good day…

My kids’ bathroom is a disaster.  Wet towels carpet the floor, the wastebasket fills up daily (at least the trash is actually in the basket…), and I’m pretty sure the lavatory has gone MIA as it can’t be seen for all the soap bars, hair ties and dried crusts of toothpaste.

I try to let this swamp be the kids’ responsibility, but on days the nesting instinct takes over, I can’t help myself.  The other day I found a half-dozen gooey, gummy, squeezed-from-the-middle toothpaste tubes.  Ick.  I lined them all up on the counter and the bathroom was transformed into the Goodwill of dental products.  Not a pretty sight.

I could have made my job easy by just trashing the whole lot.  But never someone to chose the easy route, I had to carefully examine each tube’s expiration date and ingredient list.

What I discovered surprised me.  I knew some toothpastes contained the preservative BHT, which our family tries to avoid in our goal to be “clean” consumers, but what I didn’t realize is that some toothpastes contain triclosan.

Triclosan is an antibacterial agent that’s been around since the 1960’s, when it was first used as a pesticide.  Yes, a pesticide.  Because it is effective at killing germs, triclosan has found its way into a variety of personal care products, including cosmetics (as a preservative), hand soap and body wash.  And, apparently, certain toothpastes.

But because, according to the FDA, “manufacturers did not provide the necessary data to establish (the) safety and effectiveness” of triclosan, triclosan has been banned from hand soaps and body washes since fall of 2017.

But apparently, not from toothpaste.  Colgate Total is the only triclosan-containing toothpaste approved by the FDA because it has been shown to reduce the risk of gum disease.  But consider this: triclosan kills germs like antibiotics do, and using it twice daily as a part of good oral hygiene could contribute to the alarming increase in antibiotic-resistant diseases we see today.

This prevalent problem is a great reason to avoid toothpastes that contain triclosan.  Keep in mind that flossing daily also reduces gum disease, as does simply brushing twice daily to rid your gum line of debris.  Plus, the mouth is a bacterial environment anyway (a healthy mouth contains over 600 types of bacteria), even with brushing.  It’s supposed to be that way.  And no matter how often one practices good oral hygiene, you cannot sterilize the mouth.  So it makes no sense to use a toothpaste with an antibiotic.  Just avoid it.  Keep brushing with a plain-Jane toothpaste, floss daily, and see the dentist every six months.

My new campaign:  instead of exterminating germs with triclosan, let’s get rid of triclosan.  My spell-check hates “triclosan” and it’s driving me nuts…

For more information, visit:

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/what-is-triclosan#1