Do you need to brush your teeth with toothpaste?

Most toothpastes contain fluoride as an active component that helps make your enamel more stable and therefore helps you retain amazing teeth for a longer time.

However, do you need to brush your teeth with toothpaste? As in, do you need to always use toothpaste when brushing your teeth? How effective would brushing be if done without toothpaste?

[These are all the questions we are going to be answering today- if that sounds interesting, make sure that you keep on reading!]

Well, to answer it in one line, no, you do not really need to always brush your teeth with toothpaste- doing it without toothpaste can be almost just as effective. However, using a toothpaste gives you some added benefits that you generally don’t want to miss out on.

Do you need to brush your teeth with Toothpaste?

As a matter of fact, you do not need to brush your teeth with toothpaste all the time.

As it turns out, the main reason why we brush our teeth is to ensure that we remove particles of food stuck between our teeth and to actually remove plaque from our teeth.

As such, using a moderately wet toothbrush would do just as well as using any toothpaste, and you do not really need to rely on a toothpaste for this basic purpose.

Quoting DentalPlans,

One of the best ways to control plaque is brushing your teeth thoroughly at least twice a day. But you don’t need toothpaste to do this, just a soft toothbrush and good brushing techniques will remove plaque. Flossing, limiting sugary food and drinks, and regular checkups and professional cleanings should keep your teeth in top shape.

Regular preventive care, including professional cleanings, definitely reduces the chance of serious dental health issues. Dental insurance often pays 100% of the cost of dental checkups, knowing that the investment in preventive care will enable the insurance company and its customers to avoid costly restorative treatments over time.

However, there are quite a few benefits that using a Toothpaste provides you with, as we shall see now.

What are the benefits of using a Toothpaste?

As I just remarked, while we could be doing without toothpastes, the main reason why we use them is because of the added benefits that tag along.

The main ones might be summed up in the following points:

• Good Taste: A great benefit is that you can actually have a good taste as well as a good aftertaste if you’re using a toothpaste. In our last article, we saw that you could use twigs as a replacement for brushes and you wouldn’t have to use toothpastes then (click here to view this article) however, in a case like that, you don’t have such a nice taste and aftertaste.
• Fluoride as an active ingredient: Toothpastes have fluoride as an active ingredient which actually helps you keep your enamel intact. Quoting a factual blog,

Toothpaste contains formaldehyde, the same chemical that is used for preserving bodies! It is used to kill bacteria that come in contact with the toothpaste tube..

• May Help Whiten Your Teeth: Baking Soda is a great choice to whiten your teeth– but it isn’t the only one. Several toothpastes are specially designed to be slightly abrasive so that they can help whiten your teeth as well. So, that’s yet another advantage of using a Toothpaste.

As is obvious, there are quite a few upsides to actually using a toothpaste that you lose if you choose to opt out of it. As such, people generally tend to use toothpaste to ensure that their beautiful smile can remain like that for long.

How do Electric Toothbrushes stand in comparison to regular ones?

Well, what you might be wondering about now is where exactly Electric toothbrushes stand in comparison to regular toothbrushes.

After all, since we’ve shown that Electric toothbrushes are not harmful at all, and are often even better as a choice than regular ones, it seems like it’s better than regular ones, right?

However, there are a few small negative sides to Electric toothbrushes as well. These are that you need to use them properly in order to derive the maximum benefits out of them, and keep them charged.

Electric Toothbrushes are also often much more expensive than regular toothbrushes, at least as far as the premium models are concerned (Click here to read my comparison of the very basic and a premium Electric Toothbrush model)

But, if you’re looking to know if Electric Toothbrushes are really better, click here to check out my article on this.

Clean your tongue well- but don’t use an Electric Toothbrush.

Cleaning your tongue is actually fairly important because a lot of the bath mouth odor actually comes from the particles that remain on your tongue.

And the best part is that people are slowly starting to clean their tongue more and more. However, the main problem is that since we now often use electric toothbrushes, cleaning your tongue also needs a little more thought put into it.

While cleaning it is important, cleaning it with an electric toothbrush is not really a great idea. Tooth Advocates has done the research for you and has figured out the main reasons why you should not use an electric toothbrush and what you might want to use instead. Please click here to check out our article.

Today’s Conclusion!

So, once again, what you need to know is that it is perfectly reasonable to not use toothbrush if you don’t want to use it because a wet toothbrush would do just as well as far as removing plaque and food particles are concerned.

However, in view of the fact that you could be getting a lot more out of brushing sessions, it is really recommended that you actually choose to use some nice toothbrush- and of course, that would also be a great opportunity to refresh your taste buds before and after sleeping!