My first attempt at making and using homemade toothpaste lasted a couple of months and then I got lazy erm, busy. Yep, that's right, busy. I can't make my old toothpaste anymore cos I've run out of the charcoal salt.

I've been eyeing off a toothpaste at my heath food store because it contains no sweetener. Is it just me or is it crazy to be putting sweeteners in the stuff that's supposed to be cleaning our teeth? I haven't bought the toothpaste cos it costs around $40 for a small tub of the stuff. Hello, making your own!

I created the toothpaste using a mixture of diatomaceous earth, bentonite clay, charcoal and coconut oil to act as a binder.  I didn't add any essential oils, sweetener or salt my toothpaste. I'm not a huge fan of the current trend of adding essential oil to everything, sweetener in toothpaste drives me crazy and I wasn't sure about salt (I read somewhere it's anti-bacterial and we don't want to kill off the bacteria in our mouths because they are a good thing. Dunno if it's true however!).

Diatomaceous earth is a naturally occurring source of silica, a key ingredient of toothpaste. The silica is abrasive and apparently helps to remove plaque from teeth.

Bentonite clay is composed of ash created by volcanoes and is harvested in France, Italy and the US. From what I read on the inter web, it has negatively charged molecules which bind with the positively charged toxins and draw them out of the body. Worth a go hey?

My dad grew up in Sri Lanka and used charcoal to brush his teeth. He didn't have any cavities until he came to Australia and stopped using charcoal to brush his teeth so I figured adding charcoal would be a good thing.

So, after all of my research into ingredients and creating the toothpaste, what's the verdict you ask? Well, charcoal is VERY black. Yes I know. But it is! It makes your basin go black and the tiles and your mouth and anything else it comes into contact with. Adding the coconut oil means my basin is now stained with a layer of coconut oil and charcoal. Given we brush our teeth twice a day, I've stopped using the toothpaste.  I'm going to make it again, only without the coconut oil. I'll keep you posted.