Coconut oil as moisturizer...
Olive oil, just a dab, in my hair in lieu of hair gel...
Homemade deodorant of coconut oil, baking soda and corn starch...
The only thing lacking in my natural personal hygiene department has been toothpaste.
I gave up Crest and Colgate years ago and these days, commerical brand toothpastes seem so fake-tasting and leave a funny film in my mouth. At Mr. Messy's urging, I began buying Tom's of Maine toothpaste. Whenever I run across a sale on Tom's I stock up and we are good for the next few months. But, this last time the toothpaste was all used up, no sale in sight and our bee-roke bank account on my mind.
So, I googled and experimented. For a few weeks, we used a coconut oil, baking soda and a few drops of peppermint essential oil mix. I was okay with the baking soda flavor but the texture was all wrong. A friend suggested adding some olive oil to smooth it out and that helped but by that point, I was really missing the lather and bubbles of real toothpaste.
I remembered reading about using Dr. Bronner's liquid peppermint soap as toothpaste and a friend validated that it does not taste soap and that it lathers up nicely. So, we gave it a try.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a toothpaste winner and trust me, I'm entirely too excited about it all.
The Dr. Bronner's fulfills all of my toothpaste requirements:
cheap, natural, lathering and not bad tasting.
Henry is really into brushing his teeth lately AKA as eating the toothpaste off his toothbrush. so I give him a little dollop of his kid's Tom's of Maine toothpaste and then add a few drops of Dr. B's on his toothbrush to beef up his pitiful attempt at brushing his own teeth.
So, yeah. We are all loving the Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap as toothpaste.
So.....I want to give away a 4 ounce bottle of Dr. B's peppermint soap to use as you wish! You can use it as toothpaste, mix it 50/50 with water in a pump bottle for hand soap, add it to your vinegar cleaning spray, whatever floats your boat.
And, isn't it convenient that I have my "Loving My Readers Giveaway" just dangling in the air that I never wrapped up. Nice, right? Gotta love my procrastinating ways.
How to win:
1. Make sure you follow OMML.
2. Comment on this post.
3. Earn an extra entry if you were one of my fabulous readers that posted on original "Loving My Readers Giveaway" post.
I love my readers more than I love my, ummm, toothpaste.
12 comments:
I follow you! I love your tips on these natural concoctions. I love the lavender Dr. B's, but I'd love to try the peppermint.
I'm pretty I commented on the other one! Yay!
I haven't been thinking about our toothpaste much, but lately I've been wondering about our hand soap with all the info about antibacterial soap coming out. I'd probably use it for my hands!
I follow you in my google reader.
I switched to baking soda from shampoo two weeks ago. I keep hearing that I will go through a gross adjustment stage, but so far, so good. :)
I follow your blog. I love reading it! I've been using straight baking soda for my teeth; it's not entirely pleasant.
I never considered using Dr. B's as toothpaste! Will try... for sure. I bought a different brand castille soap last time I needed some and I'm not sure the "flavor" is ideal of ingestion (sandalwood, maybe?), but I think I'll pick up some peppermint Dr. B's next time I'm near the natural foods store I use. I used to work in that store, and the peppermint soap always conjures up pleasant nostalgia, reminding me of mopping the floor there after hours.
I've been buying Tom's at BJ's and really like it. Dr. B's really doesn't taste soapy? Maaaybe I'd give it a whirl?? I'm definitely going to use your deodorant recipe though. I should be getting back to sleep since I just nursed the little one off to dreamland but really want to get up and make it now! My mom just gave me some coconut oil for my hub's dry hands so how serendipitous (oh gosh I hope that's spelled right). I'll have to comment later on how it turns out..been meaning to go natural with
the deodorant and mom's been bugging me that the commercial stuff is bad while nursing.
I follow you :-)
Wow - I never thought of using my Dr. Bronner's as toothpaste! I can't wait to try it!
Thanks for linking up at Green & Natural Mamas Thursday!
I follow you. :) I love Dr. Bronners peppermint but would have never thought of using it as toothpaste!
My daughter is allergic to coconut..I wonder if that would be so if she used it as lotion too..?
I wrote about using Dr.Bronners as toothpaste but hadn't tried it yet! Looks like I am now. I think I just needed a little push! LOL!
Awesome! We blogged about natural beauty products over at the Green Baby DS Blog a few weeks ago:
http://greenbabywilmington.blogspot.com/2011/07/green-living-natural-personal-care.html
And we didn't have a toothpaste recipe either! You know, I brushed my teeth with regular hand soap once on a trip in high school when I didn't have toothpaste. It tasted terrible, but my teeth were so smooth afterward. I'm going to try my Dr. Bronner's tonight and see what happens. Thanks for the inspiration!
I'm in the peppermint soap toothpaste club, too :) Glad to know I'm not alone!
I mostly resorted to it out of frustration when I found that every stinkin' ingredient in toothpaste, homemade or otherwise, was touted as perfect by one source and demonized by another. Baking soda is great! Oh wait, no baking soda destroys your enamel if used too often. Xylitol is great! No xylitol is an overly processed fraud. Sigh. I'll end my rant there and just say: yay! Dr. Bronner's! :)
I just recently read another post about using Dr. Bronner's for toothpaste. My little guy loves "brushing" his teeth, too, and I'll bet that Dr. Bronner's stays in the bristles much longer than toothpaste!
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