Tooth Soap, a review

Have you ever somehow got soap in your mouth? It’s not generally considered to be a nice experience, indeed once upon a time, actively washing out someone’s mouth with soap was done as a punishment.  It’s a phrase that’s still heard today, but I thought it to be a largely apocryphal phenomenon – surely nobody would force soap into another’s mouth?  A quick fact check via Wikipedia confirmed that yes, they really did, and for relatively minor transgressions such as chewing tobacco, using foul language or being intoxicated. Well recently, I’ve been voluntarily and eagerly brushing my teeth with soap, and let me tell you, it’s been a revelation.

To backtrack a little, some time before Christmas I entered into a product swap with an Instagram friend of mine, the lovely Sabine of Cebra Ethical Skincare. I saw an IG post of her for Tooth Soap Paste and really wanted to give it a try, and she was kind enough to agree to swap some of my soap for a bottle of her paste:

As you can see from the photo, she also sent me one of her vegan wooden toothbrushes as a little added extra, which was incredibly kind of her.

Anyway, I’d been curious about tooth soap for a while.  I’d heard about it of course – the world of soapmaking isn’t that big and I’d seen it discussed in various forums. I really really wanted to try it, but I wasn’t certain it would be for me.  To begin with there’s that whole ‘soap in the mouth’ thing going on (because let’s be clear here, this isn’t just ‘natural toothpaste’, it’s bona fide tooth SOAP, made with saponified oils, just like the soap I make).  I also – wrongly, as it turned out – had this vague notion that it belonged in the realms of hippydom and was the preserve of lentil weavers and crunchy mommas.

Well, thank heavens I got round to trying it, because I absolutely love it. It IS a different experience to using the regular toothpaste that most of us are used to, but in a good way. The main differences are:

1. The biggie I guess is the flavour.  Sabine uses a clever blend of grapefruit, peppermint and myrrh essential oils to flavour the paste and add other benefits such as freshening the breath, and she doesn’t use any sweeteners.  Consequently the paste tastes very different to commercially made toothpaste, but it does NOT taste ‘soapy’.  To me it’s a very cleansing, refreshing flavour.
2.  Another big difference is that the tooth soap paste doesn’t contain any foaming agent, and so you won’t get the mouthful of toothpaste bubbles that you get with commercial toothpaste.  Those bubbles are made by adding sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) or sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) to the toothpaste, and a quick internet search will give you hundreds of sites telling you how bad these two are supposed to be for us.  Trust me, once you get used to the lack of bubbles, you won’t miss them.
3. A third difference, and a big plus for me, is how much cleaner the whole of my mouth feels after using this paste.  My teeth feel super-smooth clean, much more so than when I use regular toothpaste, and my whole mouth feels refreshed in a way I just didn’t expect.
4. A minor difference – Sabine recommends that you put the paste onto a dry toothbrush and brush immediately. Don’t add water before brushing.  I confess that sometimes I’m on automatic pilot prior to brushing my teeth and automatically run the brush under the tap before brushing but mostly these days I remember not to.  It does make a difference

I continue to enjoy using this product immensely. Yes, it’s a little pricier than regular mass produced toothpaste, but it’s handmade, it’s vegan, it’s organic, it’s ethical (check out the facts), it’s VERY effective and it lasts for aaaaaages. Really, what more could you want? If you’ve ever been curious about trying tooth soap then I would urge you to try Sabine’s first – I’m very glad I did!

You can find Cebra Ethical Skincare on the web here , on Facebook here , on Twitter here, and on Instagram here.

Please Note – I was NOT given a free sample to review, and all views are entirely my own.