From the moment some ancient Egyptians crumbled together pepper, dried flowers, and rock salt and tried to clean their teeth with it, toothpaste has been a part of our oral hygiene history. Humans have been using toothpaste for longer than most people realize, with even the ancient Egyptians using it.
Ancient Origins of Toothpaste
Toothpaste dates, by most estimates, back to the days of the early Egyptians, around 5000 BC. While humans could have used toothpaste before the Egyptians, there isn’t any evidence. Egyptians are believed to have started using a paste to clean their teeth around 5000 BC before toothbrushes were invented. The earliest recorded formula is from 4 A.D., but experts believe Egyptians used toothpaste as long ago as 5,000 B.C.
They wanted to clean their teeth, and so they picked out a mix of abrasive substances, such as the salt, and sweet-smelling ones, such as the flowers, to both clean and freshen. The ingredients of ancient toothpastes were however very different and varied. Ancient toothpaste was used to treat some of the same concerns that we have today - keeping teeth and gums clean, whitening teeth, and freshening breath.
Early Ingredients
What was in that earliest recorded formula? It’s a combination of pepper, iris flowers, mint, and crushed rock salt. Some early forms of toothpaste featured mint and crushed rock salt. As for the ingredients and their measurement, the more than 1,500-year-old recipe called for one drachma (one-hundredth of an ounce) of rock salt, one drachma of mint, and one drachma of the dried iris flower, all mixed with around 20 grains of pepper.
Other ingredients used included a powder of ox hooves’ ashes and burnt eggshells, that was combined with pumice. To that end, some of the formulae also called for bizarre stuff like ox hoove ashes and burnt eggshells. On the other hand, the Greeks and Romans were more abrasive with their toothpaste ingredients.
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Greeks and Romans used combinations with oyster shells and crushed bones. They added more abrasives to their mixture to increase the cleaning power, the most popular of which were crushed bones and oyster shells. The Romans added more flavoring to help with bad breath, as well as powdered charcoal and bark. The Romans added charcoal to help freshen their breath.
The Surprising History of Toothpaste
Evolution Through the Ages
Over the ensuing years, ancient civilizations tried lots of other different ways to clean their teeth. None of that sounds particularly appetizing, and as the years went on, people realized they could add other ingredients to the pastes to make them more palatable. Throughout the years, other toothpaste ingredients have included pulverized charcoal, chalk, ashes, burnt eggshells, brick dust, pumice, and ox hooves.
Medieval Times
Now contrary to our popular notions, the tradition of keeping one’s teeth clean did continue in medieval times, albeit confined to particular sections of society. In Gilbertus Anglicus’ 13th century Compendium of Medicine, readers are told to rub teeth and gums with cloth after eating to ensure that “no corrupt matter abides among the teeth.”
In The Trotula-a compendium of folk remedies from the 11th or 12th century-we find many recipes for what we might consider toothpaste, though their efficacy is dubious. Take burnt white marble and burnt date pits, and white natron, a red tile, salt, and pumice. From all of these make a powder in which damp wool has been wrapped in a fine linen cloth.
Yet a third recipe gives us a luxury variety, its ingredients well out of reach of the average person. Take some each of cinnamon, clove, spikenard, mastic, frankincense, grain, wormwood, crab foot, date pits, and olives.
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A dentist with silver forceps and a necklace of large teeth, taken from the Omne Bonum, published in the 14th century.
18th and 19th Centuries
It took a long time for toothpastes as we now know them to enter the mainstream. In the early 1800s, they began to pop up across Europe and the United States, but they were still fairly unrecognizable from their modern forms. In fact, early on some toothpaste makers just used soap as the main ingredient in toothpaste. In 1824, Dr. Peabody, a dentist, used soap and abrasive ingredients. This combination maximized cleaning powder. Eventually, sodium lauryl sulfate replaced the soap, improving consistency.
But perhaps the strangest ingredient came in the 1860s in England, when one formula for toothpaste included Betel nut, a fruit of the areca tree. This was odd, because Betel nut is a stimulant, sort of like caffeine, and its use is banned for pregnant women because of potential side effects on their fetuses. In the 1850s, chalk was a popular ingredient in toothpaste.
Toothpaste became commercialized in the United States in 1873, when Colgate began selling a jar of toothpaste. The first mass-manufactured toothpaste was released in 1873 under the Colgate brand. Back then, the paste came in a jar. It took almost two decades for toothpaste to migrate to its current form, in squeezable tubes. Two decades later, the company began selling toothpaste in a collapsible tube. The first was sold by Dr. Washington Sheffield.
20th Century and Beyond
Toothpastes with added fluoride, which we continue to use today, debuted in 1914. Fluoride has a complicated and controversial history itself. Sixty years later, natural toothpastes would become popular without any additives such as fluoride. These natural toothpastes rely on herbal extracts, not unlike the ones used by the ancient Egyptians 7,000 years ago.
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Once the basic formula for commercial toothpaste had been established, manufacturers began to experiment. The modern-day toothpaste contains fluoride, as well as flavoring and coloring. Some even have sweeteners, odd as that sounds considering the purpose of toothpaste is to fight cavities caused in part by excess sugar consumption.
Modern Toothpaste
Modern toothpaste has come a long way in terms of ingredients and the convenience of tubes. Most modern toothpaste will be a good option for the average person. Today our commercially produced toothpastes have evolved to help not just our teeth but even other parts of our body, our households and our bottom lines.
Long before the advent of Crest and Colgate, in the fourth century AD, an Egyptian scribe recorded a toothpaste recipe on a piece of papyrus that is now housed in a museum in Vienna. Now, there are countless types of toothpastes that have a variety of acute end-goals, and still clean your teeth.
Here's a brief overview of the evolution of toothpaste ingredients:
| Era | Key Ingredients |
|---|---|
| Ancient Egypt (5000 BC) | Rock salt, dried iris flowers, pepper, mint, ashes of ox hooves, burnt eggshells, pumice |
| Ancient Greece and Rome | Crushed bones, oyster shells, charcoal, bark |
| Medieval England | Burnt white marble, burnt date pits, white natron, red tile, salt, pumice, cinnamon, clove, spikenard |
| 18th-19th Centuries | Soap, chalk, Betel nut |
| 20th Century - Present | Fluoride, flavoring, coloring, sweeteners, herbal extracts |
So next time Dr. Dhiraj Sharma reminds you to brush your teeth, take his advice to heart.
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