Ten honest ingredients. No mint, no flavour, no artificial colour, no sweetener, no salicylates — and one active ingredient that eighty years of clinical evidence actually supports: fluoride.
Plain Toothpaste is an Australian fluoride toothpaste formulated without mint, flavouring, artificial colour, sweetener or salicylates — for people whose mouths don’t tolerate the things most toothpastes are built around. Peppermint oil. Sodium lauryl sulfate. Salicylates. Saccharin. Titanium dioxide. Synthetic dyes.
That includes patients on elimination diets, people with fibromyalgia or salicylate intolerance, those with chronic mouth ulcers, parents of children who gag on mint, and a surprising number of clinicians who simply prefer a toothpaste that does one job well.
It is, deliberately, nothing special. White paste. No taste. Gentle foam. Clean rinse. Proven fluoride. That’s the product.
The full INCI list for Plain Toothpaste Regular. Sensitive adds one: strontium acetate. Nothing is there for colour, flavour, foaming theatre, or marketing.
The base. Nothing to hide.
Keeps the paste moist and stable on the brush. Non-cariogenic — unlike sugar, it doesn’t feed oral bacteria. Derived from vegetable sources.
The gentle cleaner. A low-abrasion silica that removes plaque and surface stain without damaging enamel. This is what actually does the scrubbing — no need for charcoal, baking soda or volcanic ash.
Binds water into the paste so it stays creamy. Also vegetable-sourced.
The foam. Derived from coconut and the amino acid glycine. Chosen specifically instead of SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) — the harsh foaming agent associated with mouth ulcers and tissue irritation.
A plant-cellulose derivative that gives the paste its texture. Inert, non-absorbed, widely used in food.
Natural chalk. Provides mild polishing action alongside the silica and contributes calcium to the oral environment.
A second plant-derived cellulose used to fine-tune consistency. Inert.
A paraben-class preservative used at low concentration to prevent microbial growth in an aqueous formula. Its safety profile in oral-care at this level is well-established by the TGA, FDA and EU SCCS. The alternative — an unpreserved toothpaste — is not a safe alternative.
The one ingredient that does measurable work against tooth decay. Eighty-plus years of clinical evidence — tracing back to the community water fluoridation trials of the 1940s — backed by the TGA, WHO, NHMRC and every serious dental association on earth. This is what makes Plain a real toothpaste rather than a flavoured cleaning gel.
Occludes exposed dentinal tubules to reduce cold/hot sensitivity. The same mechanism used in older professional sensitivity pastes — quietly effective, without relying on proprietary flavour blends.
Most toothpastes are 70% flavour system. Plain isn’t. Here’s what we left out — and why.
The single most common cause of toothpaste intolerance. Out.
Every flavour is a potential trigger. Plain has none.
No dyes, no pearlescent stripes, no titanium dioxide.
No saccharin, sucralose, aspartame or stevia.
Critical for fibromyalgia and salicylate-intolerance patients.
Sodium lauryl sulfate — the foaming surfactant linked to aphthous ulcers.
An antibacterial largely withdrawn from oral care worldwide.
Higher-RDA abrasives strip enamel over time. Plain uses mild hydrated silica instead.
No bleaching agents. If you need whitening, see a dentist.
Clove, tea tree, eucalyptus — all common intolerance triggers. None here.
Vegan formulation. Never tested on animals.
Allergen-audited base.
Fluoride is the most thoroughly studied active ingredient in oral care. Since the 1940s, population-level data and randomised trials have consistently shown that brushing with 1000–1500 ppm fluoride reduces dental caries by approximately a quarter in adults and children alike — a finding most recently confirmed by the Cochrane systematic reviews of Marinho et al. (2003) and Walsh et al. (2019). The World Health Organization, Australia’s NHMRC, the TGA, the ADA and the NHS all endorse its use.
Plain Toothpaste delivers 1000 ppm fluoride as sodium monofluorophosphate — the same therapeutic dose as mainstream adult toothpastes, no more and no less.
Many wellness-positioned toothpastes have piously removed fluoride and substituted an ingredient that sounds clinical: activated charcoal, bentonite clay, baking soda, or nano-hydroxyapatite. Of those, only nano-hydroxyapatite has any genuine remineralisation evidence, and even that evidence is shorter, thinner and more industry-funded than the fluoride literature by several orders of magnitude. The others have effectively no decay-prevention data at all.
Several of those substitutes — particularly activated charcoal and bentonite clay — are also significantly more abrasive than a modern silica-based formula. A growing body of laboratory and clinical work has shown that high-abrasion pastes wear enamel and expose the softer, yellower dentine beneath. Over time the result is the opposite of what their packaging promises: duller-looking teeth, increased sensitivity, and surfaces more vulnerable to the very decay fluoride was removed to address.
We think people with genuine sensitivities deserve a toothpaste that removes the things their mouths can’t tolerate — without also removing the one thing that actually prevents decay. That’s what Plain is.
Plain Toothpaste is stocked by Ethical Dental — a clinician-run practice and online dispensary in Coffs Harbour, NSW. Orders are dispatched directly from the practice, not a warehouse.
We route retail through Ethical Dental because we think a toothpaste recommended by people who actually treat teeth ought to be sold by people who actually treat teeth. It is the same product you’d be handed at the end of an appointment.
Shipped Australia-wide from Coffs Harbour, NSW. All profit from every sale is donated to the Coffs Coast Wildlife Sanctuary.
All profit from every Plain Toothpaste sale on Ethical Dental is donated to the Coffs Coast Wildlife Sanctuary — a rehabilitation centre in Coffs Harbour, NSW that rescues dolphins, seals, penguins and sea turtles along the coast from Lennox Head to Port Macquarie.
It is why we route retail through a single clinician-run shop rather than distributing nationally: smaller margins, a shorter chain, and a clearer line between the shelf and the rescue tank.
Visit the sanctuary →Plain Toothpaste contains 1000 ppm fluoride — the standard adult concentration. Under current Australian guidance (NHMRC; Australian Dental Association, Guidelines for use of fluorides in Australia: update 2019), this strength is appropriate for children aged six and over, brushing twice daily with a pea-sized amount and spitting rather than swallowing.
For children aged 18 months to 5 years 11 months, the same guidance recommends a low-fluoride children’s toothpaste (around 500 ppm) — Plain Regular is not formulated for that age group. Under 18 months, no toothpaste is recommended; brush with a soft brush and water only.
For children at high caries risk, your dentist may recommend a different regimen at their discretion. Follow their advice, not ours.
Charcoal and baking soda have no meaningful caries-prevention evidence and higher abrasion scores than a modern silica. Nano-hydroxyapatite has some remineralisation data but nothing approaching fluoride’s eighty years of population-level trial evidence. If your goal is to avoid cavities, fluoride is still the right call. If your goal is to avoid additives, that’s what Plain is for.
Butyl-p-hydroxybenzoate is a preservative used at approximately 0.1% to prevent microbial growth. An aqueous toothpaste needs a preservative — unpreserved water-based products are a contamination risk, not a safety feature. Butylparaben’s oral-care safety has been reviewed by the TGA, the FDA, Health Canada and the EU SCCS at this concentration. We’d rather be honest about this than swap to a trendier preservative with less data.
We think a toothpaste formulated around clinical sensitivities is best stocked by a clinical practice — not a general-purpose warehouse. Ethical Dental is a working dental practice in Coffs Harbour, NSW with an online dispensary. Every order leaves the same building that treats patients. It keeps the supply chain short and the advice, if you need any, on the other end of a real phone.
Yes. All ingredients are plant- or mineral-derived or synthetic. No animal products, no animal testing.
A little. It uses sodium cocoyl glycinate, a gentle amino-acid surfactant, rather than SLS. Expect a soft foam, not a toothpaste advertisement foam.
