Beauty Tips For Body Care
TL:DR; Toothpastes without SLS also tend not to have tartar-preventing ingredients. People with delicate dental health might need to do extra to keep their mouths tartar-free if they switch toothpastes to get away from SLS.Now the long explanation.So, I definitely have problems with SLS, like a lot of people here. I've switched to co-washing (using silicone-free conditioner to wash my hair instead of shampoo) so I'm not shampooing with it anymore, and I avoid SLS in my body wash, toothpaste, and anything else I use anywhere besides hand soap. As a result, I no longer get crazy huge, painful pimples on my scalp, I have less acne (and less painful and itchy acne) around my chin, less mouth sores, and my body skin is generally less itchy and calmer. I've been avoiding SLS for probably 2 years now? And it's been pretty great.On to the bad stuff: My family has a history of poor dental health and I personally have been fine (but paranoid) my whole life just with brushing my teeth daily and flossing somewhat regularly. I don't go to the dentist because of a slew of phobia and anxiety problems I'm currently in therapy for, but I monitor my teeth pretty closely. I've noticed a substantial increase in tartar on my teeth over the 2 years or so that I've been actively fighting to keep down, and matching up timelines, it looks like it started around the time I switched toothpastes. In my efforts to find ways to remove tartar effectively, I found that there are two primary ingredients that are shown to prevent tartar (note, prevent not remove): triclosan and tetrasodium pyrophosphate. Apparently there are a lot of serious health risks associated with triclosan, and tetrasodium pyrophosphate is supposedly a pretty strong irritant. All the toothpastes I've ever uses before going SLS-free had one of these ingredients, so I'm pretty convinced my increased tartar is a result of no longer using tartar-prevention ingredients. Even though tetrasodium pyrophosphate is an irritant, I'm willing to try a toothpaste that has it so long as it doesn't have SLS, but I've yet to find one (let me know if you find one?)For people not terribly familiar with dental terms, plaque is the soft stuff that hangs out on your teeth between brushings. Tartar is the hard stuff that plaque turns into if you don't get it off your teeth (so it usually builds up in the places your toothbrush doesn't reach well, like right beneath your gums or in the crevices between your teeth. Googling these terms will totally give you lots of closeups of the inside of people's unhealthy mouths. So, have fun with that.Most people have trouble with tartar buildup behind their lower front teeth because of saliva sitting there combined with brushing habits usually focusing on the front of teeth. If you're checking your mouth for tartar, that's probably the most obvious place you'll see it.Sorry if this seems like fear-mongering, I swear that's not my intention. I just figure an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and if other people are just switching, they can research and find ways to prevent tartar rather than trying to get rid of it once it builds up.I'm not a dentist, just the kind of person that researches the crap out of things. That said, here are some tips you can totally research on your own to help prevent tartar:Brush your teeth for two minutes (30 seconds per quadrant). Studies show less than that isn't doing you full justice.Floss daily (or better yet, twice daily)Use a water flosser instead of string floss (shown to be far more effective than string floss, but admittedly more expensive).I'm trying out some stuff right now that claims to remove tartar even though conventional wisdom says you have to get a dentist to remove it for you, but I don't want to espouse a method I can't be sure works.Has anybody else seen declining dental health since switching toothpastes?
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by colleeninator
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