The best natural toothpaste you can buy

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

The Insider Pick:

• Natural toothpaste formulas don’t have to be lacking in powerful ingredients or great flavor. Take our top pick, Desert Essence Natural Tea Tree Oil and Neem Toothpaste, for example. It cleans teeth and keeps breath fresh, thanks to naturally occurring tea tree oil, neem, baking soda, and sea salt.

Brushing your teeth is an intimate thing. And yet, we don’t tend to give our toothpaste selection careful thought. Most of us just go to the drugstore, pick up whatever is on sale, and go on our merry way. Can you even tell me what brand is in your medicine cabinet right now?

Now more than ever, buyers interested are interested in ingredients. They want to know what’s in their products, and why. Although there is a significant amount of debate about what really counts as “natural” and whether “natural” is automatically preferable to synthetic formulations, more and more people are making the switch to products that use all or mostly natural ingredients.

Maybe you’re here because you’ve already overhauled your skin care, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, and deodorant to include only natural products, and toothpaste is just the next item on your list. Or perhaps you simply want to learn about the alternatives to whatever is currently sitting on the shelf in your bathroom.

But first, a note about fluoride: Though some people prefer to avoid it, there are several options in our guide that do include the ingredient. As Allure points out, “contrary to what many believe, fluoride is natural.” It’s “found throughout the earth's crust, in rainwater, in plants, and it's the only ingredient that is proven to reduce cavities," as dentist Caroline Barsoum told the publication.

Still, some people don't want fluoride in their toothpaste, so if you prefer to do without fluoride, there are some options for you in our guide, too.

Here are our top picks for the best natural toothpaste:

• Best overall: Desert Essence Natural Tea Tree Oil and Neem Toothpaste
• Best with activated charcoal: Schmidt’s Activated Charcoal Tooth and Mouth Paste
• Best for sensitive teeth: Hello Sensitivity Relief Fluoride Toothpaste
• Best fluoride-free: Tom’s Antiplaque Whitening Fluoride-Free Toothpaste
• Best for kids: Hello Kids Fluoride-Free Natural Watermelon Toothpaste
  

Read on in the slides below to check out our top picks for the best natural toothpaste.

The best natural toothpaste overall

Why you'll love it: Thanks to its natural ingredients, Desert Essence Natural Tea Tree Oil and Neem Toothpaste keeps your mouth clean and healthy.

Desert Essence Natural Tea Tree Oil and Neem Toothpaste appears on tons of “best natural toothpaste” lists and has racked up tons of rave reviews on Amazon. Why? Because it’s effective but lacks most of the ingredients you probably came here to avoid.

This toothpaste is mentioned all over the internet as a top natural toothpaste — it has 1,200 Amazon reviews (75% of which give the product 5 stars!) and earns high marks from experts as well. Good Housekeeping, Ask a Dentist, and Apartment Therapy all include it among their picks for the best natural toothpaste.

Tea tree oil is the hero ingredient, and it's said to be antibacterial and freshen your breath. Good Housekeeping did note that its testers didn’t love the flavor of this toothpaste, so if you’re really sensitive to taste, you may want to read on for other options.

In a review, Anna Hoffman of Apartment Therapy wrote, “Overall, I really liked this toothpaste — it tasted pretty good and was effective at keeping my mouth as fresh and non-swampy as my normal drugstore toothpaste.”

Pros: Natural ingredients, contains antibacterial tea tree oil

Cons: No fluoride, “earthy” flavor

Buy Desert Essence Natural Tea Tree Oil and Neem Toothpaste on Amazon for $8

The best natural activated charcoal toothpaste

Why you'll love it: Don’t let the color of Schmidt’s Activated Charcoal Tooth and Mouth Paste fool you — This is an excellent whitening toothpaste that tastes minty fresh.

Natural deodorant company Schmidt’s recently added toothpaste to its roster of products, and I’ve personally had the chance to test out a few of the flavors. My favorite is the Activated Charcoal Tooth and Mouth Paste. It comes out of the tube a disconcerting shade of dark grey, but it’s worth overlooking the initial shock because of the whitening benefits.  

I get bad stains on my teeth, which are partially due to the texture of my tooth enamel and partially due to my insistence that water and coffee are interchangeable substances. This toothpaste lessened the impact of those stains so much that my mom noticed without me even mentioning it, which is pretty much the highest compliment I can give it.

My teeth stayed even noticeably lighter after I moved on to using a formula without the activated charcoal. Schmidt’s Activated Charcoal Tooth and Mouth Paste is formulated with COQ10, vitamin E, and goji berry and pomegranate extract, and is vegan and cruelty-free.

The brand’s toothpastes are pretty new so they only have a few online reviews. Fast Company writer Rina Raphael gave them a mostly positive assessment, though she was initially put off by the grey color of the activated charcoal toothpaste.

The two buyer reviews on Amazon both give the toothpaste 5 stars. “I love this toothpaste,” says one fan. “It has a smaller amount of charcoal than some others. I like that. It still does a great job, but it is less messy. And...my teeth feel so clean!

Pros: Nice minty flavor, whitening activated charcoal, cute packaging

Cons: Toothpaste is dark grey and will stain your sink if you don’t rinse thoroughly after brushing

Buy Schmidt’s Activated Charcoal Tooth and Mouth Paste at Target for $4.99

The best natural toothpaste for sensitive teeth

Why you'll love it: Got sensitive teeth? Hello Sensitivity Relief Fluoride Toothpaste is packed with soothing ingredients and lacking in dye, artificial flavor, parabens, and SLS.

Toothpaste for sensitive teeth doesn’t tend to inspire medicine cabinet envy — The packaging is often clinical and unattractive. But Hello Sensitivity Relief Fluoride Toothpaste is the exception. The metallic pink tube looks great next to all your fancy face creams, while the formula delivers soothing ingredients and a fresh, minty taste.

There’s so much to love about Hello Sensitivity Relief that it’s hard to know where to start. It has all the great benefits you get from the brand’s other formulas, like teeth whitening and cavity fighting, plus the addition of desensitizing ingredients like aloe vera, xylitol, and coconut oil (commonly used in a dental care technique called oil pulling).

Then, there are all the things this toothpaste doesn’t have: parabens, artificial dyes or flavors, sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), gluten, preservatives, etc. Additionally, all Hello products are cruelty-free, vegan, and packaged in boxes “made from 100% recycled paperboard and printed with soy inks.”

Allure names Hello Sensitivity Relief as a great pick in an article on natural toothpaste, and it has a 4.4 rating on Amazon based on 326 customer reviews. “Truly the best toothpaste available,” writes one fan. “I started using this toothpaste 6 months ago because I have terribly sensitive teeth and my teeth feel the best they've ever been.”

Pros: Contains soothing and moisturizing ingredients for sensitive teeth, cruelty-free, comes in recycled packaging, no SLS, contains fluoride

Cons: Contains fluoride

Buy Hello Sensitivity Relief Fluoride Toothpaste on Amazon for $4.82 

See Also:

• The best mosquito repellent products you can buy
• 13 effective cleaning products that'll keep your car looking pristine — as recommended by a car enthusiast
• The best picnic blankets you can buy

SEE ALSO: The best toothpaste for sensitive teeth