All Natural Tooth Powder – a DIY Recipe

As my long time readers from An Austin Homestead know, I like to save money and packaging by making all natural alternatives to common and oft-used around the house products. I make all our soap, of course, and i also try to can or freeze most of our preserved foods. I buy in bulk and use reusable handmade bags, and i especially like to keep my family healthy by keeping almost all commercially made body products out of our house. Products like toothpaste.

Did you know that sodium laureth sulfate, the same stuff used to make commercial shampoos rather, is in most toothpaste? Have you read the ingredients on most toothpastes in the store… if you have you’ll see lots of chemicals, flavors, colors and other artificial nastiness. And flouride. I have mixed feelings on flouride, but despite my dentist’s opinion on the stuff, he checked out my teeth as ‘problem free’ in my last visit…. after i’d switched to making my own tooth powder. I’ve been using my tooth powder for about 1.5 years. My last dentist appointment was also about 1.5 years ago, before the tooth powder. I had 2 supposed cavities and gingivitis. Commercial toothpaste: cavities and gingivitis. Homemade tooth powder: no cavities or gingivitis and a clean bill of mouth health. Want to make some for yourself? I thought so:

Homemade Tooth Powder

  • Baking Soda
  • Course grind salt, preferably sea salt, preferably sea salt with lots of minerals like Real Salt
  • Optional (but really great for polishing teeth and clearing up stains) montmorillonite (french) clay
  • Essential oils: i highly recommend Clove for its gum healing properties, and tea tree for a great all around antiseptic. Add peppermint if you love the taste.

I store my tooth powder in a small jar and serve it up with a spoon into a spoon rest for daily use. To mix tooth powder, fill your jar about 3/4 of the way full with baking soda. Add salt to almost fill and add a half teaspoon of clay. Pour these ingredients into a larger jar (to facilitate easier shaking) and add about 8 drops cloves and 3-5 drops tea tree. You may end up adding more or less depending on your taste later on. Shake!

 

 

Pour back into your storage jar and enjoy clean, healthy teeth and gums for pennies! You may find your teeth feeling cleaner then you’ve noticed in a long time, i sure did the first time i used this. The clay will help get those tea stained teeth back to pearly whites in no time! Want a bit more info on why you should make the switch from store bought toothpaste? This blogger has some great information on the ‘dark side’ of toothpaste, as well as an alternative recipe for homemade tooth powder.

Do you make your own bath and body products? How about tooth powder?

21 Comments

Filed under Bath & Body, DIY

21 Responses to All Natural Tooth Powder – a DIY Recipe

  1. Hi,
    I found your site(s) looking around bestgreenblogs.com, and was inspired to try your DIY tooth powder.  I stopped in my local natural foods store yesterday, and while they didn’t have “French” clay, they had NOW European clay – 100% pure montmorillonite.  From your photos, looks like your clay is orange in color and what I got is a pastel green.  Is the stuff I got okay to use??

    • MirandaRommel

      Yep! I got the pink clay to color my soaps, but your clay should work great. Keep in mind the stuff is labelled “not for internal use” so don’t eat it!

      •  Thanks.  Nope, won’t eat it for sure, and I do like the way it works (I went ahead and made up a batch figuring it was okay).  However, I wonder about using it every day since it’s somewhat abrasive…  I too am trying to cut down on the chemical household products.  Making your own is funner and healthier anyway. : )

        • MirandaRommel

          I was using this tooth powder for over a year before my last dental visit: i got thumbs up on my tooth health all around! If you want it less abrasive, simply add a bit less clay and salt. I drink so much tea and coffee that i really need some scrubbing action!

  2. AriesWarlock

    It’s a good recipe, I would add xylitol to improve it.

    • Thanks for your comment. I prefer to avoid chemicals, but i have heard xylitol does good things for teeth. I’ll continue to get the xylitol from my chewing gum, however.

  3. mary

    i am going to try this recipe as i have been using homemade toothpaste with coconut oil, baking soda, calcium, tea tree and peppermint e/o’s…it’s great but not to travel with as it melts easily. This tooth powder you have here looks awesome!!! I am going to make some right now. The benefits of using homemade products has been amazing!!! I have a cajillion allergies hence the diy homemade products venture i am on..and LOVING IT!!! Cost savings and more importantly Peace of Mind knowing that chemicals are out of my house makes me breathe easier. Thanks for sharing!!!! :)

  4. Piano

    Hi, is there a reason to use sea salt instead of table salt? Does the added iodine in most table salt have any harmful effect? My reason for asking is, I am looking for ways to make my own tooth powder while traveling in 3-world countries, where virtually nothing is available but the most basic goods. Toothpaste is available and that is what I currently use, but I am looking for a simpler alternative. While hand-harvested sea salt is available in some areas where it naturally occurs (I still have a little left from Lac Assal in Djibouti :-) only packaged table salt is available elsewhere. Comments?

    • You can absolutely use table salt. I use sea salt because A . the texture and B. there are more vitamins/minerals left viable in unprocessed salt. I do not believe there is any problem with the iodine in table salt. The salt is mostly there for the scrubby effect. Good luck with your travels!
      Miranda recently posted…Homemade “Milk Bones” – Dog Biscuit Recipe

      • Debra Ford

        Piano, did you know that some table salts have sugar added to them, shocked me to learn that, so I would recommend that you check that first before using plain table salt. If you need the iodine, you don’t need to consume salt to get it, your body will absorb what it needs through the skin, just put a bit of the liquid iodine on the soft skin of the inner thigh.

  5. Sally

    Added iodine is a good thing. Lack of iodine causes serious disorders. Iodine deficiency disorder used to be common in Australia as our soils are iodine deficient. See here if you want further information: http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/aha/umioddef.htm

    However please believe me that taking iodine out of your diet is not a good thing.

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  7. Just discovering your blog through this recipe on Pinterest and will subscribe momentarily! I have a question about the clay. Our local health food store carries bentonite, but not the french clay you mention. Is this a good equivalent? Or will I lose the additional whitening properties? Baking soda does some of this anyway, so thinking maybe to just not sweat it…

    • Hi Denise –
      You can use any clay that’s ‘food grade.’ I’m sure that bentonite would be just fine. The baking soda does most of the whitening, the clay adds some scrub and slip. You can certainly use just salt and soda, but i like the clay for texture and the added minerals.
      Thanks for reading!
      Miranda recently posted…Wordless Wednesday: Buddy Butts

  8. Linda

    I would really like to try the tooth powder. I have recently made laundry soap, dishwasher soap, fabric softener and cleanser and am very impressed with these. However, I do not know where to buy the montmorillonite clay. Any ideas? All my daughters are now using home made cleaning products too and I am sure they would love the tooth powder too.

    • Christina

      montmorillonite clay/bentonite clay. Same thing. google it. Just a linguistic thing. I use calcium bentonite clay as opposed to sodium bentonite since I use it for ingestion purposes too. You can find food grade calcium bentonite at http://www.livingclayco.com

      I got mine from http://earthslivingclay.com but that’s because I live in San Diego and could pick it up and bypass the shipping fees :)

  9. Olga

    Hi guys,

    I used just baking soda for 2 years, and found it too abrasive. It would hurt my gums and my teeth weren’t smooth.

    Then I found a tooth powder at a pharmacy in Ukraine that was made with clay, charcoal, baking soda, and sea salt. Given the ingredient order, there is more clay and charcoal than baking soda (plus there was no strong taste of baking soda, nor any stinging). I ran out so I went looking to see if anyone makes their own with similar ingredients. Glad to find you do! I must ask though about the large proportion of baking soda – are you saying the spoonful of clay takes away the rough feeling on the teeth?

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  11. Veronica

    This sounds good! One thing about
    Table salt though. It has aluminum
    silicate in it so that the crystals don’t
    stick together and it will pour better.
    Sea Salt with no additives is 97%
    minerals.

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