Homemade Toothpaste

Sometimes I make my own products to save money, sometimes it's because I can't find a product on the market which is to my liking, and sometimes it's just because it is so fun and liberating to make things for yourself which most people would automatically purchase in a store. My homemade toothpaste falls under all three categories.

Here is the recipe:
6 tbsp calcium carbonate
2 tbsp xylitol
1 tsp baking soda
Combined with:
1 tbsp peroxide
1 tsp coconut oil
1 tsp vegetable glycerine
16 drops peppermint oil

Here is the background as to how I came to this recipe. Initially, I made the traditional homemade toothpaste combo of baking soda and peroxide, which got my teeth extremely clean, but was making my gums bleed. Further research gleaned the information that brushing daily with baking soda leads to receding gums due to the BS being too abrasive, and I certainly didn't want that. I noticed that the main ingredient in the Tom's of Maine toothpaste I'd been using was calcium carbonate, and after a bit of rooting around online I managed to find some (I later discovered it can be ordered at Soap.com for much less that I paid for it on some vitamin website.) I asked my aunt, a dentist, about the pros and cons of CC vs BS. She had no idea and forwarded the question to my uncle, a chemist, who thought that CC would be MORE abrasive than BS, but it actually wasn't. Once I started the above recipe with only a tiny bit of BS the bleeding gums stopped immediately, and my teeth were getting quite clean and sparkly. 

As for the other ingredients, the xylitol is a natural sugar alcohol with a very low sugar content which makes the toothpaste sweet and also is a bacteria deterrent, the peroxide whitens the teeth and disinfects, the coconut oil is a natural antiseptic and has been used in Ayurvedic medicine as a tooth cleaner for centuries, and the peppermint oil freshens your breath. Aside from the calcium powder all the other ingredients were fairly easy to find at a health food store or drug store, and while I haven't actually done an algebraic price comparison between what it costs to make vs buying Tom's of Maine or another "natural" toothpaste brand, I'm quite certain my own is less expensive. 

Want to try this but too busy to make it yourself? Send me an email with your address and make a donation of $5 in the donation box on this page, and I will send you a double batch of this recipe! If you are in NYC and can pick it up, it will be $3. *Warning* I have not figured out how to put it in a tube so it will come in a tupperware container.