Why I threw Weleda’s “Salt Toothpaste” in the bin. Fast.

Published on April 16th, 2010 at 7:33 pm by Matt

14


I’m sure you’ll agree when I say that there are very care products out there that don’t have a perfect little place in some person’s home. Where there’s a need, some company has gone and filled (for the most part, anyway) it.

The operant word in that previous sentence being need.

Because somehow, at some point that whizzed past my eyes, we’ve arrived at a time where corporations are making products for, get this:

Consumer Stereotype Novelty.

I know. I know. I must be mad for thinking that a company — a natural care company at that — would ever stoop so low as to produce products simply because it matches the stereotype of their consumer and, as a result, creates a novelty, rather than being based out of desire or necessity.

But here I am, about to tell you how Weleda have done that; and what’s worse, they’ve gone ahead and made a product which is not only novel in the most banal sense, but will also go ahead and give you mouth ulcers. Hurray.

So, as I’m always on the lookout for new vegan/natural body/oral care products in my local Waitrose (they now have half 7 vegan-safe haircare products, where previous there were 2!), I noticed a few weeks ago that they had begun to stock Weleda’s Salt Toothpaste.

My curiosity aroused and my teeth awaiting a try, I came home to try it out.

The taste is in the name, and whilst table salt (sodium chloride) is only the 13th ingredient, the taste was not all that pleasant. Admittedly, I did get accustomed to it after my sixth brush, but by this point the salt toothpaste had begun to unload its adverse effects. And adverse they were.

Indeed, by the sixth brush (I brush my teeth twice a day, sometimes three times if I’ve eaten particularly sugary foods — I take oral hygiene very seriously) an ulcer had begun to form in my mouth. Awesome.

Thinking nothing of it (ulcers can be attributed to citrus fruits, which I’d eaten the previous day), I cut my citrus fruit intake and continued to brush my teeth with the stuff. Not only did it sting like a BITCH, but the next day that forming ulcer had become a real nasty one (like, you have no idea) and another had formed. Both in close proximity to my teeth. Oye.

The next day I checked the ingredients and discovered, to my shock, some serious questionables. Suffice it to say, Weleda’s Salt Toothpaste is not the natural! Gentle! Loving! Ecological for your being! deliciousness that I had been promised. Not. Happy. Between the denatured alcohol and parfum (= perfume, and isn’t specified if it has assface chemicals in), I couldn’t help but be left behind feeling a little bereft.

I’m not happy. Whatsoever. And Weleda’s Salt Toothpaste is the exact reason why. I can’t enjoy my weekly hummus binge and I most certainly can’t have my usual Thursday night colourful vegetable binge. Yeah, I’m a sad health freak, but dude? Seriously? Uber huge ulcers in my mouth are the shits.

And that’s why, after much frustration and wincing in pain, I give Weleda’s salt toothpaste an unsightly:

Tags:  , , , ,