Going back to Mother Earth - How to make Natural Toothpaste and Listerine and save money and your sensitive teeth

Your teeth are very important part of your body and require care. Unfortunately Fluoride Toothpastes are not really as good for your teeth as advertised. This as excess Fluoride in the form of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate can cause deposits of Fluoride salts on the joints, resulting in a condition similar to arthritis in older persons.

Worse, if you have sensitive teeth, Fluoride Toothpaste can irritate your sensitivity and even make cavities worse. Thus the only solution that remains is to use Toothpaste that has less Sodium MonoFlorophosphate and still cleans you teeth. A quick view if the video below will give you an idea of how bad Fluoride is for you.

Thus it’s best as possible to avoid using Toothpastes that contain Fluoride as in the long run they are bad for you. The Weight by volume of Fluoride ion in all brands of Toothpaste is fixed at 0.15% i.e. there is a fixed ratio in terms of Mass to Volume for Sodium MonoFlorophosphate, the active ingredient in all manufactured Toothpaste. No matter what size Toothpaste you buy, the Mass to Volume ratio of Fluoride ion is always the same

However the percentage of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate in the various brands of Toothpastes that you and your children use varies. This is a ratio of the mass of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate to the total mass of the Toothpaste mixture inside of the tube.

This will naturally be different ratio that’ll vary from Toothpaste to Toothpaste, based on the concentration of the Sodium MonoFlorophosphate added while manufacturing the Toothpaste i.e. the molarity or number of moles of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate in the 0.15% by mass to volume ratio added during manufacturing.

Thus the guide above can allow you to identify which Toothpastes are good for you based on the amount of Sodium MonoFlorophosphate:

1.      Red Mark indicates 0.90% is Sodium MonoFlorophosphate

2.      Black mark indicates 0.76% is Sodium MonoFlorophosphate

3.      Blue Mark indicates 0.24% is Sodium MonoFlorophosphate

How to make your own Toothpaste – Back to basics with Baking Soda

Thus the best Toothpaste has less Sodium MonoFlorophosphate, which you can determine by looking at the Toothpaste tube as well as by reading the box. But you’ll also notice, even if you go shopping downtown in Coronation Market, that the Toothpaste with the lowest Sodium MonoFlorophosphate concentration usually is the most expensive and comes packed with other ingredients that are more “natural” to clean your teeth.

Even worse, is the fact that no Toothpaste is made in Jamaica, making it yet another product that we Jamaicans import and repackage and rebrand as made in Jamaica but do not produce as noted in my blog article entitled “Jamaica's Basic Item Food Bill mostly from 1st World Countries - Buy Jamaican Build Jamaica made from Imported Raw Materials in containers that says Made in Jamaica”, whether it be from Colgate Palmolive, Sensodyne or even Lasco.

Thus an opportunity presents itself again. Just as you can make your own Distilled Water using a Solar Desalinator as described in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to Make Distilled Water using a Solar Desalinator” to avoid drinking fluoridated Water, you can also make your own all-natural Toothpaste, very much well suited for those of us with sensitive teeth.

The ingredients are as listed above:

1.      Baking soda

2.      Coconut Oil

3.      Spearmint

4.      Peppermint

5.      Stevia or honey

The main active ingredients is interestingly, Baking soda, no an ingredient that’s finding renewed life in washing powders, cleaning agents and yes, even Toothpaste. If you have older relatives, they’ll tell you that long before Toothpaste became so popular with the young un’s, it was Baking soda that they used as Toothpaste.

You might find Stevia hard to find in Jamaica, so you can use Honey instead, as it never goes bad and is a natural sweetener. Peppermint and Spearmint merely simulate the taste of Toothpaste so that children will love it. Best thing of all is that it never goes bad; it’ll stay as long as regular Toothpaste and best of all, you don’t have to worry about any ill effect from swallowing it, albeit it’s not highly recommended.

If you want to make your own Listerine that both freshens you breath as well as cleanses your teeth for great oral hygiene, the procedure below is worth following. Be warned though; it is a lot more like extracting THC (Tetra Hydro Cannabinol) as explained in my blog article entitled “Ras Puddler says Legalization of Marijuana benefits large Scale Growers - How Teenagers can Learn to Extract THC for personal Use to make Chocolate Cookie, Brownies and Sorrell Cake for Christmas”.

Thus, it involved using flammable chemicals and thus great caution has to be taken when preparing this. You’ ll need the following ingredients:

1.      Eucalyptus

2.      Thyme

3.      Spearmint

4.      Peppermint

5.      Ginger

6.      A glass jar that has a watertight lid 

7.      A 2 Cup metal measuring cup with handle

8.      Stainless Steel Container

9.      100% Rum Bar Rum or other rum

10.  A coffee filter

11.  A piece of fine mesh Cotton Cloth

12.  An eye dropper bottle

13.  Electric stove

14.  Large pot with Water

15.  Very Strong Standing fan

16.  Blender

Then follow the steps below to make your own batch of Listerine:

1.      Wash the Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger

2.      Masticate the ingredients in alcohol using a blender

3.      Place the masticated Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger into your mason jar.

4.      Pour 100% Rum Bar Rum into the Mason Jar until the mixture just start to float

5.      Put the lid tightly on the Mason jar and shake the jar a few times.

6.      Let it sit for 12 hours. The mixture should have a champagne colour and have oily bubbles on top of the liquid when shaken.

7.      Place your coffee filter or cloth over your Stainless Steel Container

8.      Pour your Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger  mixture through the filter on the Stainless Steel Container.

9.      Grab the cloth by the edges and squeeze it to get as much of the green mother liquor out as possible

10.  Repeat the process using the Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger left over from 1-9 until it turn bleach white

11.  Place the Stainless Steel Container on the Electric Stove inside of another large pot with Water, basically a Water Bath for gentler heating

12.  Turn on the standing fan to remove excess vapors from the alcoholic Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger Mother liquor, keeping the heat level low

13.  Heat until it turns thick and oily and a dark orange colour but not bubbling boiling hot

14.  When the mixture thickens and darkens remove it from the burner

15.  If it gets too thick, add more alcohol and swirl it around until it thins out.

16.  Cool the Eucalyptus, Thyme, Spearmint, Peppermint and Ginger mixture to room Temperature

17.  Pour your mixture in the eye dropper bottle into a plastic bottle for use in your bathroom.

Final Words on Toothpaste - Going back to Mother Earth to prevent Tooth Decay

I’ve been making my own Toothpaste and Listerine for quite awhile, as since leaving ACCENT Marketing in May 2013, I’ve developed some cavities mainly from eating all that candy and drinking all that free soda that’s given to Call Center Workers to celebrate achieving various KPI (Key Performance Indicators).

This has turned out to be a lot cheaper than going to the dentist, albeit I’ll eventually have to, as I have wisdom teeth that need pulling. I’ve even made my own cold medicine using Concentrated Ginger and Garlic using the above extraction method that’s also great for asthma.

Stay tuned to my blog for more Herbal Remedies that actually work and can make you realized that you don’t have to get everything you need in the supermarket. In fact you can get it all from going back to Mother Earth.