Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsJust another whitening toothpaste from a dependable brand.
Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2021
Meh, this is just one of many brands of whitening toothpaste on the market. From my research, they all do pretty much the same thing using more or less the same handful of ingredients.....
1.) An abrasive designed to clean without harming your teeth like calcium or magnesium carbonate, or silicates.
2.) Either sodium flouride (cheap and acceptable) or stannous flouride (better for gums with antimicrobial action).
3.) A whitening agent, almost always hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide, aka bleach.
4.) Flavoring agents.
5.) Binders to make the whole chemical mess a paste rather than a liquid.
6.) A foaming agent to help hold the particles that are scrubbed off your teeth.
7.) Preservatives.
That's it! That's pretty much what's in that tube of any whitening toothpaste you use every day. And none of them are radically different. Ever! They all buy their component chemicals from a handful of suppliers. And they all sell pretty much identical solutions. The difference is in the branding. Meaning the advertising, the packaging, and the pricing is what differentiates these products.
And while I'm on pricing.....a number of people have noticed the ever shrinking product size. Most recently the product shrank from 4.1 oz to 3.9 oz. That effectively results in a neat little 5% price increase for the brand manager at Crest. And yup, it's a sleazy tool that has been used for decades in the consumable products industries like foods, toiletries, and over the counter medicines. Most people will either not be aware of the price increase or simply shrug it off as not meaningful. And that what the brand manager at Crest is counting on, your apathy. So vote with your wallet. Toothpaste is a commodity not a proprietary secret formula.
As for these whitening toothpastes, Crest is one of the shadier players. The only difference in whitening is the amount of bleach, either hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide they put in the product. Crest does not disclose the level of bleaching agent in their product or which one they are using. Colgate on the other hand took the opposite approach and does indeed disclose that they are using 3% hydrogen peroxide in their equivalent Optic White Renewal product. Kudos to Colgate for taking the high road on product transparency. But Colgate also charges a lot more ($5.98) for a 3 oz tube of toothpaste vs the 3.9 oz tube that Crest offers ($5.00) here on Amazon.
Lastly, for the people who seem to be upset with the change to an old school screw cap instead of a snap top cap formerly used, that may be a good thing. Any bleach is by nature a highly reactive chemical. In this case, hydrogen peroxide and carbomide peroxide both begin to react with oxygen when you squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube. Once that reaction takes place, the bleach is done, it won't produce any more whitening effect. So, an effective seal on your toothpaste tube is important to keep out oxygen for the 23 hours and 59 minutes a day your toothpaste is just sitting on the shelf. Crest may have decided that people were too lazy to to close the snap top cap or the snap to just wasn't effective enough to seal out atmospheric oxygen thereby creating spoiled product and customer complaints. A threaded screw type cap WILL seal out air IF you screw the cap on well after each use and keep the threads clean. If not, your whitening toothpaste will be useless when you go to use it.
Anyway, despite the sleazy pricing through product shrinkage and lack of transparency about the amount of bleach in their product, I keep using Crest because it does work and the price is generally better than the direct competition. And like I said, toothpaste is a commodity.
