The Toothpaste Wars: How to Find the Best Toothpaste

Every time you open a magazine you're bombarded by commercials that promise the whitest teeth, the freshest breath and the greatest smile. It would seem that toothpaste is the answer to all our worldly problems. Finding the right toothpaste out of the hundreds on the store shelves can be a very daunting experience and a costly one, too. Especially if you're throwing away a half tube because you don't like it.

Dentists recommend a toothpaste that contains fluoride to prevent cavities. Most of the toothpastes I looked at contain fluoride, but I noticed that they contained different percentages. One contained .243%, another .24% and yet another contained .76%. This information was found by just randomly picking up a few boxes. Is there a certain amount of fluoride needed per day? That question could be best answered by your dentist. I'm not a professional, just an honest, unpaid, non-expert.

I picked up six brands of toothpaste. The prices ranged from .89 to $2.89 and the sizes were from 4.2 oz. to 6.0 oz. Interestingly enough, I found that toothpaste now carries an expiration date and it makes me wonder if it's less effective or no good at all after it expires.

The brands that I purchased were: Arm & Hammer Peroxicare Advance Cleaning Toothpaste, Ultrabrite Baking Soda & Peroxide Whitening Toothpaste, Crest Whitening Expressions Cinnamon Rush Gel, Colgate Total Clean Mint Paste, Pepsodent Complete Care and Crest Cavity Protection Toothpaste. There were many, many other brands on the shelves including a few organic and store brands. I chose the ones I did because of attractive packaging, price and the fact that the drugstore devoted more space to 4 of the 6 brands. The Ultrabrite was on sale for .99 and Pepsodent was regularly priced at .89, the other four were $1.99- $2.89. I rated all the toothpastes using a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being th highest score.