Here's why.
1. It doesn't stain. At least, it doesn't immediately bleach your clothes on contact like regular toothpaste. I can't be the only person in the world who has accidentally gotten toothpaste foam on their shirt--and had the shirt bleach as a result. I HATE THAT. I have ruined way too many shirts that way. With my homemade toothpaste, it doesn't matter what it gets on--no shirts are going to be ruined. In fact, because of the baking soda in there, it might even help get stains out of shirts! Who knows. Maybe I'll test that eventually. Anyway. Coconut oil can leave behind oil marks, but you can get them out. I've never successfully treated a toothpaste stain, though (although that may say more about my own incompetence than about toothpaste stains--I don't know).
2. No fluoride. I started researching fluoride recently, and the results I found were terrifying. Go research it yourself, but let me just say, it is SUCH a relief now to brush my teeth and know that I'm not putting any fluoride into my body while I'm doing it.
3. I know exactly what's in it. Check out the list of ingredients from the back of my husband's tube of toothpaste (he has not converted to my homemade stuff):
sodium fluoride
triclosan
water
hydrated silica
glycerin
sorbitol
PVM/MA copolymer
sodium lauryl sulfate (the sudsing agent you also find in shampoo--it's not in homemade toothpaste so you don't get suds)
flavor
cellulose gym
sodium hydroxide
propylese glycol
carrageenan
sodium saccharin
titanium dioxide
Now, I don't know about you, but of the ingredients I recognize, minus water, I don't really want any of those on my teeth. Propylene glycol? SLS? Sorbitol? Fluoride? Not to mention--what the heck is carrageenan anyway? Sick. It is so nice to know exactly what is in my homemade stuff. Coconut oil, baking soda (or sodium hydrogen bicarbonate, as it is known chemically), and essential oil for that minty feeling.
4.. It still has a minty taste. Thanks to the peppermint and spearmint oil in it. The mintiness is not overpowering or tongue-numbing; rather, it's just enough to let you know you brushed your teeth. At first I didn't like that, but now I do. It's grown on me.
5. It's a breeze to make. See the recipe below.
1 part coconut oil
1 part baking soda
drops of spearmint oil and peppermint oil to taste
Downsides to homemade toothpaste? Well, using coconut oil as the medium does have a downside. Coconut oil is solid lower than 76 degrees Fahrenheit, but liquid above that. So some nights my toothpaste cannot be squeezed out of the bottle, and I have to kind of scoop it out. Other nights, it's as runny as water. I'm still mastering how to put the toothpaste on my actual toothbrush in the various scenarios.
Also, there's definitely not as much of a minty taste. But again, the softer minty feel has grown on me.
Some recipes for homemade toothpaste have you add in stevia; I didn't, because I don't have any. The first few times I used my toothpaste, it seemed kind of bitter, but now I don't mind that it isn't sweet. It just took using it a few times.
From my math, my exact batch of homemade toothpaste cost more than the Colgate version would, because I bought coconut oil at a higher price than I needed to (at the time I didn't know better). I think normally, the homemade stuff would be cheaper or at least on par with the storebought stuff.
Anyway. Homemade toothpaste was an experiment, but I'll count it as a successful one for me.
