Our recipe is generous heap of baking soda, a spoonful of baking powder, a small sprinkle of kosher salt (gentle abrasive and kills germs), a few packets of Truvia (stevia has natural fluoride and sweetens without contributing to cavities), a couple drops of food flavoring and a couple drops of water to make it into a paste. It works wonderfully. The taste does take some getting used to, but the kids love the fact that it doesn’t “burn” like they used to always complain that store-bought toothpaste.

In the future, we plan to try using sea salt instead of kosher salt and a couple drops of glycerin instead of water to improve consistency (the consistency seems to vary depending on humidity and temperature, which can fluctuate considerably in a bathroom!) For dispensers, I use an empty washed out Colgate Kids toothpaste container – the flip-top lid makes it convenient and if the homemade toothpaste gets thicker or runnier depending on the temperature/humidity it can still flow easily from the reused Colgate container, plus it’s easy to fill. For the kids, we use a flip-top snack bowl from the dollar store. It’s a little plastic container with a screw on lid that flips open – meant for kids to eat Cheerios in the car without spilling and making a mess I think. But it’s super easy for them to open and close (without losing the lid or making a mess) and to dip their toothbrush down into it. Easy to refill, too.

It’s so much cheaper (and more fun!) than store-bought toothpaste and better for you. It leaves your teeth feeling just-brushed clean ALL DAY and it’s fun to experiment with flavors. We’ve enjoyed strawberry, raspberry, banana and almond homemade toothpaste. Much more pleasant in the morning than mint, mint, mint to us, but you can always use peppermint oil if you must have that minty taste (I guarantee you won’t need the mint taste for your mouth to feel fresh and clean though. I think my favorite so far is the almond.) :) Enjoy!