We add essential oils to Earthpaste to make it taste good, but they have other impressive benefits for your mouth as well.
The essential oils in Earthpaste have a pretty important job: They make it taste delicious and refreshing. But they aren't only there for flavor. These essential oils have benefits that can boost your oral health. Here's how these essential oils support a healthy mouth.
- Peppermint Essential Oil: Peppermint oil has well-researched antimicrobial properties that can support a healthy mouth. It also has analgesic properties that provide a cooling and numbing effect. This can help ease oral discomfort or tooth pain.
- Spearmint Essential Oil: As another member of the mint family, spearmint oil has similar benefits to peppermint oil. It has documented antimicrobial properties and has been shown to aid in the reduction of bacteria strains that cause bad breath.
- Wintergreen Essential Oil: Wintergreen oil has antimicrobial properties as well, and it even has the FDA's seal of approval for use in dental products. The FDA determined that a compound from wintergreen oil called methyl salicylate is effective in over-the-counter dental products formulated to target plaque and gingivitis. Methyl salicylate can be toxic in very high doses though. So don't take wintergreen oil internally and keep it out of the reach of children.
- Lemon Essential Oil: Citrus juices are known for being acidic and a little rough on your enamel. Luckily, citrus oils like lemon oil are much more alkaline and safer for your enamel. Lemon oil contains a potent compound called limonene, which has proven antiseptic properties that can benefit your mouth. It's also one of the best essential oils for supporting healthy gums.
- Lemon Verbena Essential Oil: Despite its name and strong citrus scent, lemon verbena oil does not come from the citrus family. It comes from a perennial shrub. Lemon verbena is known for its high antioxidant content, which makes it great at supporting healthy inflammation levels in the mouth and beyond. Like most of the oils on this list, it also has antimicrobial properties that can support a healthy mouth.
- Tangerine Essential Oil: Tangerine oil is another citrus oil with documented antimicrobial properties thanks to the compound limonene. Limonene is an antioxidant as well, which means it could support healthy inflammation levels.
- Lime Essential Oil: The compound limonene is found in lime oil too. So it has similar benefits to the other citrus oils on this list, including the ability to promote a healthy bacterial balance in your mouth.
- Cinnamon Essential Oil: Cinnamon oil is one of the most effective oral health cleansers in the essential oil world. In studies, it's been shown to act against one of the primary bacteria responsible for tooth decay. Cinnamon also has antifungal properties that could make it useful against oral candida infections. It contains compounds that could support healthy inflammation and pain levels in the mouth too.
All of our Earthpaste formulas also contain another powerful essential oil—tea tree oil. You can read more about why we use tea tree oil and how it helps your mouth here.
Are Essential Oils Safe?
There's a lot of debate out there about the safety of essential oils. We're not doctors, so we're not going to get into that debate. But we can say that in Earthpaste, you're not ingesting essential oils. You're brushing with them and then spitting them out. This usage is recognized as safe by most, just like external use is generally recognized as safe.
Plus, the amount of essential oil used in our Earthpaste formula is incredibly small and highly diluted by other ingredients. Any toxicity issues with essential oils arise from ingesting large, undiluted quantities.
Our Quality Guarantee
When we chose the essential oils for Earthpaste we worked hard to find the oils that aligned most closely with Redmond’s guiding principles: 100% pure essential oils that are never farmed or sprayed with pesticides. We believe nature has it right, and that's why we didn’t compromise with our essential oils.
We choose not to share the brand name of the essential oils we use in Earthpaste because of the passion people have for their particular brand of oils. The marketing messages are intense and divisive, and we don’t want to fuel sales for one brand (“Earthpaste chose our brand! Hooray!”) or upset sales representatives from brands we don’t use.
But we can promise you that we only use oils that best match our values and quality standards, so we can create amazingly natural (and effective) toothpaste that you and your family can count on.