Saturday, April 20, 2013

Homemade toothpaste recipe

Where does the time go? I am currently in my eighth month of pregnancy with my first child, hence my lack of posts lately.  Also, to be honest in some ways I've hit a plateau in the changes I can make.  Living in an apartment is limiting as you can't change certain things - for example I hate the fact that we have vinyl floors in our bathrooms and kitchen area, knowing the toxins off-gassing constantly into our air.  I think sometimes for sanity you have to just choose not to think about certain things until you can do something about them.  Ideally I wouldn't have carpet either.  These are all things I think about though with the imminent arrival of our baby, but like everyone else, we just have to do the best with what we have.  Keep the house aired so we aren't breathing too much of it all in, keep the floors vacuumed regularly etc.

I wanted to share a recipe for toothpaste - I might add, this is not my own recipe, I have tweaked it yes but I found it online somewhere but apologize that I'm not exactly sure now where I got it from.  My husband and I have used this for the last 8 or so months and found it great, I'm on our second batch of it now.  My husband always comments how clean his mouth and teeth feel after using it.  Anyway it's very simple to make you just mix it all together and I keep it in a glass jar with a lid in the bathroom with a teaspoon to scoop some out each time.  Its not as convenient as a tube - though I have heard you can buy tubes you could put it in (though I think the tubes are plastic so avoiding that obviously) but it works ok!

Here's what I do:

3 Tablespoons baking soda
1 Tablespoon fine table salt  (not sea salt for this)
2 Tablespoons coconut oil
1 drop DoTERRA peppermint oil
2 drops DoTERRA lemon oil
2 drops DoTERRA clove oil
2 drops DoTERRA on guard (in flu season as this is amazing protection against sickness!)

Mix together and it makes quite a thick paste.  That's it! You have toothpaste.

I personally love my DoTERRA oils. They are the purest you can get and work well in this toothpaste. Reasons I like this particular combination:
*  Baking Soda is known for cleaning and whitening capabilities
*  Salt is great for healing, for gums etc (like giving a salt water gargle etc)
*  Coconut Oil is antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal, helps to brighten teeth, heal gums and much more
* Peppermint Oil has a refreshing flavor, maintains good oral hygiene overall, helping bad breath.
* Lemon oil is natural astringent, works well with baking soda too.
* Clove Oil is traditionally great for the gums, teeth - alleviating toothache etc.
* On Guard is my 'go-to' for the flu season - amazing blend of oils that really protects and kills the flu virus more effectively than the Flu Shot.  (This oil saved me this last winter when I was working with people that had heavy flu's and colds and it didn't come near me!)

You can obviously change the flavors around if you have preferences for certain essential oils etc but this is the recipe I use anyway and have found really good.

If you are interested in learning more about essential oils I have a page on facebook where I post interesting info and testimonials about my experience or friends experience's with DoTERRA.  Feel free to join the group here.   You can buy DoTERRA oils here but I recommend joining as you pay a lot less when you sign up and signing up means no obligations to buy at all. Feel free to ask me if you want further info.

On another note - I'll also mention as I was asked in the previous post and thought others of you may be also interested.  I have found some bamboo recyclable toothbrushes we have been using. They work pretty well and are one answer to having plastic ones.  The brand is called 'Smile Squared' and Amazon and local health stores usually have them.