Homemade Toothpaste

I've been playing around with making homemade toothpaste for a while now. I did a lot of blog reading and wasn't quite satisfied with any of the recipes that I found so I cobbled a few together, experimented with quantities, and came up with this.

I've noticed that the bentonite clay can cause a slightly drying mouth feel after using this toothpaste so you might need to rinse a couple of times after brushing. My kids don't seem to be bothered by this though. 

I didn't think to take photos until after I'd done the first couple of steps so you'll just have to use your imagination. :) 

100g xylitol

2.5g Himalayan (or other unrefined) salt 

130g boiling water 

120g calcium bentonite clay powder 

20g coconut oil, melted

2 drops food grade tea tree essential  oil 

10-15 drops food grade peppermint essential oil

10-15 drops food grade wild orange essential oil 

Dissolve xylitol and salt in water. 

Add bentonite clay to the water and beat until combined (I used an electric hand held mixer - make sure any metal you use is stainless steel and avoid prolonged contact with the clay). 

 

If required, adjust the consistency by beating in small amounts of water or clay. You're after thick whipped cream or mousse consistency.

Beat in the melted coconut oil. It should look nice and creamy now.

Beat in the tea tree essential oil.

Divide the mixture into 2 batches (it works out to just under 200g per batch for me).

Stir the wild orange essential oil into one batch; and the peppermint essential oil into the other. 15 drops of each makes for a fairly strong tasting toothpaste so adjust amounts to taste. You can use other essential oils too, just make sure they're safe to take internally (lavender, lemon, cinnamon, could all be nice I think). Make sure you use a reputable brand of food grade oils.

  

I put the finished product into BPA-free Malibu tubes but you could just use glass jars (do not use metal).

I place a snaplock bag into a glass, top of the bag folded down; then add the toothpaste into the bag. I then seal the bag, cut off a small section from one corner, and pipe the toothpaste into the tubes.

Recipe makes a bit under 400g, depending on how much clay and water you use to adjust the consistency. Adjust quantities for smaller families. 

Tonsil Stones (Tonsilloliths) and Xylitol

It's not something that I'd expected but since I've been using xylitol regularly, I haven't been getting tonsil stones!

Tonsil stones are gross little calcifications of trapped food and bacteria in the tonsils. I've been getting them since I was a little kid.

It took maybe two months of regularly (4-6 time per day) rinsing with a homemade xylitol mouthwash before I noticed that I wasn't getting tonsil stones any more.

I wouldn't recommend using xylitol to substitute normal sugar in your diet but I'm now completely convinced that there are very real benefits to using xylitol in things like mouthwash and toothpaste.

Update

   

Finding beauty everywhere

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Loo Bear has been enjoying the puzzles in the CSIRO's Double Helix magazines.

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Shmoo has been perfecting his gluten free raspberry and lemon friands*. He has now made them several times, including a batch for our homeschool monitor. We had our review (and Loo's initial monitoring visit) in August and it went very well.

*We made the friands with Nuttelex a couple of times so that they were dairy-free and whilst they were okay, they're definitely much better with real butter.

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I'd given up on our cauliflowers and hadn't checked on them too closely for a while. While collecting herbs one morning I glanced over and noticed a huge head of cauliflower. We've had 3 more since and we're also still getting lots of yummy silverbeet, parsley, kale and beetroot.  Shmoo has taken to helping me weed the beds and keep an eye on the developing cabbage heads.

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The last few months I've been getting back into making our own yoghurt and have even branched out into making labneh. So easy and yummy.

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We had fun making some bird feeders recently. The OH poked a hole in the bottom of 5 plastic cups. We then used a length of kitchen string to tie 2 craft sticks in an 'X' shape and threaded the other end through the hole inside the cup and securing to the outside with sticky tape. Repeated for all 5 cups. We mixed 1kg wild bird seed mix with 250g softened lard. The boys packed the seed mixture into the cups; removed the tape; and pulled the string tight so that the craft sticks rested snugly against the top of the cups. We froze the cups for a few minutes until they had set and then removed the seed mix from the cups and hung them up outside.

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Baby Bear had a cardiology review a while ago. At 18 months old he was not impressed with being stripped down in front of strangers in a strange environment, attached to strange machines, and poked with strange equipment. He put up with being weighed (9.29kg with a nappy on - below the 3rd centile line still) and then cracked it. He was very vocal about his displeasure. I breastfed him through the ECG and that somewhat distracted him but by the time we got to the echo he was totally over it. He wouldn't feed anymore and refused to be distracted by the apps on my mobile. They couldn't really get a good view of his heart because of his screaming and squirming around but it looked like there probably wasn't anything 'significant'. The cardiologist was happy enough to schedule the next review for 2 years time, when Baby Bear should be old enough to be a bit more cooperative and allow us a better look at his heart.

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It's been a tough winter with us seeming to catch a cold or flu every 2-4 weeks for the past 3 months. The last cold has left Baby Bear with a mild chest infection and a horrible case of oral thrush. His mouth is causing him a lot of pain and I haven't been able to brush his teeth because he screams and his mouth and gums bleed so much. Our GP has just put Baby Bear on antibiotics 3 times a day for the chest infection and to make sure nothing nasty has gotten to his heart through his mouth. He's also on nilstat 4 times a day for the thrush. Poor baby. He's terrible at taking meds and I'm also giving him probiotics, kefir grains, xylitol and coconut oil so it feels like I'm trying to coax him into opening his mouth all day. Fingers crossed that it all clears up very quickly! 

Catch Up - Pigs, a Birthday, Teeth and More

  

 

We've visited Mount Gnomon Farm for their Rare Day Out. In between the rain, wind and hail we enjoyed some delish food and took a tour of the farm, seeing the Wessex Saddleback pigs and Belted Galloway cattle.

We celebrated Loo Bear's 7th birthday with our traditional jelly cups and bubble bath. This year Loo requested a chocolate cheesecake with berries on top so I had fun making and decorating a simple but very yummy Toblerone cheesecake.

The Burnie Arts & Function Centre hosted the Da Vinci Machines exhibition. We all thoroughly enjoyed the fascinating and hands-on displays, as well as the more in-depth explanations that one of the workers gave us. We also took the opportunity to turn it into as mini study on Leonardo Da Vinci.

Last year, when Baby Bear and I were at the hospital in Melbourne, the OH took the other 3 boys to the Devonport community gardens. He discovered that we were eligible for the Youth & Family Focus Inc.'s Veggie Patch Project, so he signed us up. Recently the team came out and installed 2 awesome raised garden beds as well as a compost bin.

We've discovered samphire at a local beach, so have gone foraging while collecting seaweed for the garden. Samphire has the saltiness of olives with a nice freshness and crunch. We ate it after blanching and it would go well in salads.

Meeting lovely new people while out and about...

 

After years of watching our tooth fairy visit his older brother, Loo Bear finally got his first wobbly teeth. One fell out recently and we popped it and a note into a 'Tooth Jar'. Bramble Ravenwing, our boy-tooth-fairy, exchanged the tooth for a letter and a dinosaur candle (he doesn't do money).

And speaking of teeth, we've started using xylitol. I dissolve it in water (about 1.5g of xylitol per 20ml dose) to make a mouth rinse that we use after eating. I chose a mouth rinse over substituting it into our diets so that we don't have to worry about how much we're consuming and possible side effects. We also have some Epic gum and mints that we use, mostly for when we're out and about. The kids love the fresh fruit 'mints' as they're not actually minty - they have a cool, tangy, fruity flavour. The OH and I like the spearmint gum. We are occasionally using the xylitol toothpaste too but I'm currently researching making my own toothpaste with a betonite clay, bicarb soda, coconut oil and xylitol base.