In 2025, independent lab testing found that roughly 90% of the toothpastes it examined contained detectable lead. The brands implicated were not fringe products, including household names like Crest, Colgate, Sensodyne, and Tom’s of Maine, along with dozens of formulas marketed for children and many sold as “natural” or “green.”

That headline rattled a lot of medicine cabinets, and it deserves a careful look rather than a panic. Toothpaste is, after all, a cleaner we put in our mouths twice a day for a lifetime. Knowing what’s in it, what the science says about the risk, and which ingredients raise legitimate environmental and health questions is worth a few minutes. Here’s where the evidence stands now.

Toothpaste, a History

The history of oral hygiene dates back nearly 7,000 years to an abrasive powder made from materials like eggshells, pumice stone, or ox hoof ashes. Egyptians would wet the powder and rub it on their teeth. Later the Romans and Chinese sought to improve the flavor of their abrasive powders with herbal ingredients like mint and ginseng. Not much changed until the 1800s, when inventors added soap and chalk to the powder.

The first toothpaste tube, which was made of lead, was introduced in the 1890s. (Yes, lead has a long and unfortunate history with this product.) It was the first of many changes that followed in the 20th century, as a host of new chemicals both increased the effectiveness and the environmental and health risks of toothpaste. In 1955, Procter and Gamble released the first stannous fluoride cavity-preventing toothpaste. Fluoride remains the most common active ingredient in toothpaste today.

Personal care products of all kinds were largely homemade until the last century, and that is still an option today. You can make your own toothpaste and mouthwash at home using simple ingredients you already have in your kitchen. Talk to your dentist before giving up fluoride, though, which is proven to deter cavities.

Are there troublesome ingredients in your favorite brand of toothpaste?

The Heavy Metals Question

The 2025 lead findings came from Lead Safe Mama, a consumer-advocacy operation run by lead-poisoning-prevention activist Tamara Rubin. Its program crowdfunds samples and sends them to an independent, third-party lab. Across roughly 51 toothpastes and a few tooth powders, about 90% tested positive for lead, 65% for arsenic, just under half for mercury, and about a third for cadmium. All four are toxic; lead and arsenic are particularly concerning for children’s developing brains.

That sounds alarming, and the contamination is real. But context matters enormously here.

Where the metals come from

The contamination appears to be unintentional, traced to naturally sourced ingredients that carry trace metals when they aren’t purified: hydroxyapatite (often derived from animal bone or mineral sources), calcium carbonate (an abrasive), and especially bentonite clay, a natural “detoxifying” ingredient that was a recurring culprit in the highest-contamination products.

Rubin’s ingredient testing found the raw materials themselves were contaminated, which points to a supply-chain and sourcing problem rather than one or more bad actors.

The regulatory gap

None of the tested products exceeded the FDA’s federal limit for lead in toothpaste, which is 10,000 parts per billion (ppb) for fluoride-free pastes and 20,000 ppb for fluoride pastes. However, those thresholds are substantially higher than the limits set for food. By comparison, California caps lead in baby food at 6 ppb, and the proposed federal Baby Food Safety Act would set 10 ppb, neither of which covers toothpaste. Most tested pastes cleared the baby-food bar by a wide margin but sit far below the cosmetic ceiling.

Washington State has moved to close part of that gap. Its Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act set a 1,000 ppb lead limit for cosmetics, including toothpaste. A handful of products in the testing exceeded it, with the worst offender, a brand called Primal, containing 7,800 ppb. Companies have been given time to come into compliance.

What an independent risk assessment found

After the headlines, toxicologists reviewed the Lead Safe Mama results. A peer-reviewed screening-level risk assessment published in Public Health Toxicology in 2025 used Lead Safe Mama’s own data and deliberately conservative assumptions, including the worst-case scenario that a child swallows a full smear of toothpaste at every brushing. The conclusion: for cadmium and mercury, exposures fell below health-guidance values across the board. For lead and arsenic, on the other hand, a handful of products exceeded the most protective guidance levels under heavy-use scenarios, but the doses were still several times to several orders of magnitude lower than what children and adults already get from food, household dust, and soil.

The researchers’ assessment concluded that the heavy metals detected “are not anticipated to increase health risk” through typical use, and that a normal pea-sized amount is safe. That doesn’t make the contamination acceptable; no level of lead exposure is considered safe, and unnecessary exposure is still worth avoiding. But it reframes the story from “your toothpaste is poisoning you” to “your toothpaste is one more avoidable trace source in a world that has too many.”

A small set of products came back as free of all four metals, proving cleaner sourcing is achievable. They included Dr. Brown’s Baby Toothpaste, Spry Kids’ tooth gel, Orajel Training Toothpaste, and Miessence. (Earth911 will receive a small fee if you make a purchase through these links.) As of mid-2025, Lead Safe Mama listed seven products meeting its non-detect threshold.

Other Ingredients Worth Watching

Heavy metals aren’t the only thing in the tube that draws scrutiny. A few others come up repeatedly:

• Titanium dioxide. This white pigment (listed as CI 77891) does nothing for your teeth; it’s purely cosmetic, there to make the paste look bright white. The EU banned it as a food additive in 2022 over genotoxicity concerns, and the EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has said a mutagenic effect from oral cosmetic use can’t be ruled out. It remains legal in toothpaste in both the EU and the US, and the FDA still permits it, but many manufacturers are dropping it voluntarily. Since it has no functional benefit, it’s an easy one to skip.
• Sulfates (SLS). Sodium lauryl sulfate, the foaming agent, is not linked to cancer despite a persistent internet rumor. It can be a skin and tissue irritant for sensitive people and has been associated with canker sores. SLS-free options are widely available if you’re prone to either.
• The sodium pyrophosphate used to prevent tartar can pass through wastewater treatment and feed algal blooms and create dead zones in waterways. Phosphates aren’t in every paste, and some mainstream brands offer phosphate-free formulas.

The Fluoride Debate Got Louder

Fluoride remains the most studied and most effective cavity-preventing ingredient in toothpaste, and major dental and pediatric organizations continue to recommend it. But the politics around it shifted sharply in 2025.

In May 2025, the FDA began action to pull ingestible fluoride supplements (drops and tablets that are swallowed) for children off the market, citing concerns about the gut microbiome and finalizing the move that October. It’s important to read what that action covers: the FDA explicitly distinguished swallowed supplements from topical fluoride in toothpaste and rinses, which you spit out and which it did not move against. The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Dental Association both pushed back hard, warning the broader anti-fluoride momentum could drive up tooth decay.

The underlying science is genuinely unsettled at the edges. A 2025 JAMA Pediatrics meta-analysis found an inverse association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ, but mostly at exposure levels well above US water-fluoridation concentrations, with the dose-response uncertain at lower levels. The takeaway for toothpaste users is narrow: spitting out a topical fluoride paste is a different exposure than swallowing a concentrated supplement, and the evidence against topical use remains thin. If your water is already fluoridated and you’d rather avoid it, that’s a reasonable personal choice, and there’s now a better-supported alternative than there used to be.

Hydroxyapatite: The Fluoride Alternative That’s Earning Its Claims

Nano-hydroxyapatite is a synthetic version of the mineral that makes up tooth enamel, and has moved from niche fluoride alternative to credible option. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Dentistry concluded that hydroxyapatite toothpaste can be an effective alternative to fluoride for preventing caries progression and remineralizing early lesions, with the added pitch of strong biocompatibility. A 2025 narrative review of recent clinical trials reached a similar conclusion, calling it a safe and effective option, especially for children or anyone at risk of fluoride overexposure, with possible added benefits for tooth sensitivity.

While the data is piling up fast, research on hydroxyapatite is earlier and thinner than fluoride’s decades of data, and some trials are industry-funded. Second — and this is the irony — hydroxyapatite is one of the ingredients flagged as a potential heavy-metals vector when it’s not well purified. The lesson isn’t to avoid it; it’s to favor brands that publish third-party purity testing.

Animal Welfare

It may surprise you that some toothpastes contain animal products. Propolis is sourced from bees. Unless specified otherwise, calcium phosphate and glycerin can be derived from animal bone and fat. If you’d rather not brush with animal byproducts, look for vegan-certified products.

Even toothpastes without animal ingredients may have been tested on animals. To avoid those, look for Leaping Bunny certified products. Vegan and cruelty-free aren’t the same thing, so a product can carry one certification without the other.

Packaging

Toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes can be recycled, but it’s not as simple as tossing them in the curbside bin. Most tubes are multi-layer plastic that local programs can’t process. That’s slowly changing: Tom’s of Maine, Colgate (though Bloomberg found the company’s recyclability claims aren’t well supported), and other brands are transitioning to recyclable plastic tubes.

Tube-free products sidestep the packaging problem entirely. Toothpaste tablets and chewables come in glass or metal-tin packaging, tooth powders ship in tins or jars, and some brands now use aluminum pods.

Sorting the Concerns by How Much They Matter

Not every flagged ingredient carries the same weight. Here’s a plain-language triage based on current evidence:

What You Can Do

You don’t need to throw out your toothpaste. A few practical moves address the real concerns without overcorrecting for the overblown ones:

• Use a pea-sized amount. It’s the single most effective step for cutting any ingredient exposure. The risk assessment found it erases most heavy-metal concerns, and it make the tube last longer, which reduces waste.
• Supervise young kids’ brushing. Children swallow more toothpaste than adults, so they’re the most relevant group for any ingestion concern. Use a rice-grain smear for under-3s and a pea for older kids.
• Favor transparency. Choose brands that publish third-party testing for heavy-metal purity, especially if your paste contains hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate, or bentonite clay.
• Skip the purely cosmetic stuff. Titanium dioxide adds whiteness and nothing else. Check the ingredient list for “CI 77891” and pick a formula without it.
• Keep brushing with an effective active. Fluoride (spit it out) or clinically supported hydroxyapatite both prevent cavities. Don’t trade a proven benefit for an unproven fear.
• Ditch the tube where you can. Tablets, powders, and tinned formats avoid multi-layer plastic.
• Don’t run the tap. Leaving the water running while you brush can waste up to four gallons of fresh water each time, even with a low-flow faucet.

Toothpaste is cleaner than the scariest headlines suggest and messier than the industry would like to admit. The contamination is real, the regulatory ceiling is too high, and the fixes are simple. Brush well, use less, read the label, and don’t let the noise talk you out of caring for your teeth.

Related Reading

• Toothpaste Ingredients To Avoid
• How To Make Your Own Toothpaste
• Recycling Toothbrushes and Toothpaste Tubes
• Vegan and Cruelty-Free Certifications, Explained

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Gemma Alexander on January 3, 2022, and was substantially updated in June 2026, when we added the 2025 findings on heavy-metal contamination, the FDA’s fluoride-supplement action, titanium dioxide regulation, and clinical evidence on hydroxyapatite.

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