I used to be in Los Angeles final week visiting one in every of my daughters, and he or she took me to Erewhon. (Fortunately, for the file.)
Should you’ve by no means been, Erewhon is the grocery retailer the place a smoothie prices $22 and the parking zone appears to be like like a Tesla dealership. When in Rome, proper?
So, in fact, I find yourself within the toothpaste aisle, and what I noticed was fairly thrilling. Nano-hydroxyapatite was all over the place. Model after model, all that includes nHAP—the calcium mineral that makes up 97% of your enamel.
Ten years in the past, you couldn’t discover these items outdoors of Japan. Now it dominates the toothpaste aisle on the most talked-about grocery retailer in LA. That’s actual progress!
For years, I instructed sufferers who requested me about toothpaste that every part in the marketplace was a compromise. Boka was the best choice obtainable for some time—and I used to suggest them. They bought nHAP into individuals’s arms when no one else was doing it.
A girl subsequent to me within the aisle picked up a tube of Boka and mentioned, “Are you aware something about these?”
I instructed her I’d know a factor or two.
We bought to speaking. She’d heard about nHAP from a podcast. She was selecting a toothpaste based mostly on the one ingredient she’d heard of, however neglecting to contemplate every part else on the label.
I picked up the tube of Boka she was holding and flipped it round…
Numerous important oils: peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, anise, plus cardamom oil, and menthol. Seven substances with broad-spectrum antimicrobial exercise, doing the identical factor: killing micro organism.
Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, which is a deceptive one. The entrance of the tube advertises “SLS Free” however what they did was swap SLS for a surfactant cousin. Completely different chemical title, similar class of ingredient, similar foaming-and-stripping impact on the cells the micro organism in your mouth rely on. It’s a softer model, but it surely’s nonetheless a surfactant! “SLS Free” has develop into a advertising and marketing phrase. It’s not the identical as surfactant-free.
She mentioned, “Aren’t important oils pure?”
Pure, possibly. Microbiome-destructive, undoubtedly.
Right here’s the factor about “pure.” A small bottle of tea tree oil is the concentrated extract of kilos of leaves. No one is placing that a lot tea tree into their mouth by chewing leaves in actual life. Focus any plant compound sufficient and it stops behaving like a plant and may behave like a drug.
I began flipping each tube on that shelf. All the identical story…
Important oils in each single one. Some had 4. One had 9, together with tea tree oil, some of the potent broad-spectrum antimicrobials in nature. These are small firms doing good work getting nHAP into individuals’s arms. However they’re loading their formulation with substances that don’t discriminate within the micro organism that they kill and suppress.
Right here’s what I feel is definitely occurring. Toothpaste is regulated as a beauty within the U.S. (regardless that it actually shouldn’t be). So these manufacturers are borrowing from the skincare playbook. Chamomile. Lavender. Unique botanicals. “Elevated” substances that sign sophistication and justify premium pricing.
It’s beauty mimicry. And it really works, as a result of we’ve been educated to learn toothpaste labels the way in which we learn skincare labels. However having chamomile in your toothpaste isn’t the improve the label needs you to assume it’s.
Right here’s what I instructed her…
There is no such thing as a remineralization with out the oral microbiome.
Your enamel can’t heal with out the micro organism in your mouth.
Injury the microbiome, and remineralization slows and even stops.
The “good guys” aka the commensal, or helpful, micro organism in your mouth—species like S. sanguinis, S. salivarius, S. oralis—are a part of a microbial neighborhood that produces nitric oxide, which helps cardiovascular well being. They convey together with your intestine and your mind by what researchers now name the oral-gut-brain axis. They preserve dangerous breath in verify. They stabilize your saliva chemistry so calcium and phosphate can redeposit onto weakened enamel.
When your toothpaste wipes them out, you’re not simply risking your enamel. You’re knocking out micro organism that preserve your complete physique wholesome.
It’s like watering a backyard whereas pouring salt on the soil.
A 2021 examine printed in Antibiotics examined important oils — together with thyme and oregano — towards each cavity-causing species like Streptococcus mutans and helpful commensals like Streptococcus sanguinis. The important oils killed each. The researchers put it plainly: these results on commensal micro organism “can increase issues,” as a result of eradicating them means “an imbalance can happen resulting in an infection or oral illness, turning our answer into an issue.”
I don’t blame these firms. Important oils style good and provides toothpaste that tingly clear feeling. For a very long time, we didn’t perceive the oral microbiome properly sufficient to know this was an issue. However now we do.
At this level, my new good friend within the toothpaste aisle requested one other query: “OK, so I would like nHAP with out the important oils. However isn’t 10% the focus to search for? Isn’t extra higher?”
Nice query. And the reply shocked her.
That 10% quantity traces again to a single 2009 examine out of China. The “nano” particles they examined had been 500 to 2,000 nanometers, which, by right this moment’s requirements, aren’t nano in any respect.
They’re micro-particles. Ten to forty instances bigger than what nano truly means now.
After all you wanted 10% of that. You want quite a lot of gravel to fill a hairline crack. However engineer a fine-grain sand that matches the crack precisely, and also you want far much less.
However efficacy isn’t the solely query value asking a few toothpaste. And that is the place we dentists are likely to get narrow-minded…
We have a tendency deal with what’s occurring to tooth construction. Does this rebuild enamel? Does it whiten enamel?
However a toothpaste ingredient doesn’t keep in your enamel. It touches your gums. It will get absorbed by the skinny tissue of your mouth. It finally ends up swallowed by chance. It leads to your intestine. The appropriate query isn’t simply “does it work on my enamel?” It’s additionally “is it protected for my entire physique?”
That’s the place the SCCS is available in…
The Scientific Committee on Client Security is the European Union’s impartial scientific panel for evaluating substances in private care merchandise. They require producers to submit their knowledge. They run their very own critiques. They take a look at cell-level results, irritation, absorption, what occurs when a particle crosses into the bloodstream, what occurs when one thing accumulates in organs. Then they publish a proper opinion, and the EU makes use of that opinion to determine what’s authorized to promote. If solely the FDA had been so thorough, however I digress!
In June of 2025, the SCCS printed their most up-to-date opinion on nano-hydroxyapatite. They usually had been particular. Rod-shaped particles. Uncoated. Unmodified. Sure side ratios. Not needle-shaped, which they explicitly flagged as probably dangerous. Particles assembly these precise specs, and solely these specs, they thought of protected.
Right here’s the road from their opinion: “Any uptake of hydroxyapatite (nano) by buccal mucosa is taken into account negligible, and the epithelial cells with internalised particles might be shed out over time.”
In plain English: these particular particles don’t accumulate in your physique. Cells that occur to select one up get shed naturally, the way in which cells in your mouth already do.
That could be a big deal. And it solely applies to the particular type of nano-HAP the SCCS evaluated.
The nano-HAP we use in Fygg is named nanoXIM, made by a Portuguese firm referred to as Fluidinova. The particles are about 30 nanometers lengthy and 15 nanometers huge. Rod-shaped. Uncoated. Precisely what the SCCS authorized for whole-body security.
The analysis we invested in…
Full disclosure: I’m a co-founder of Fygg. You understand that. One of many issues I insisted on from the start was that we truly put money into impartial analysis…to not show we’re proper, however to seek out out if we’re. Any model that asks to your belief needs to be keen to place their formulation below a microscope in public.
So Fygg invested in a peer-reviewed examine at Dr. Bennett Amaechi’s lab at UT Well being San Antonio—one of many high remineralization researchers on this planet. We requested a selected query: how does our formulation evaluate towards each different main nano-HAP toothpaste, and towards fluoride toothpastes, in head-to-head remineralization?
Each product within the examine produced vital remineralization—in step with the broader literature displaying that each nHAP and fluoride can rebuild enamel.
And towards prescription-strength fluoride (ClinPro 5000) and customary fluoride (Crest), Fygg carried out comparably.
A well-formulated nHAP toothpaste can match what fluoride does.
Right here’s what’s telling concerning the unfold. Fygg and Boka each use nanoXIM—the identical SCCS-grade nano-hydroxyapatite. And but Fygg considerably outperformed Boka. Two formulation utilizing the identical energetic ingredient shouldn’t produce nearly-double outcomes. One thing else within the formulation separated them.
The formulation filled with important oils, surfactants, and botanicals carried out worse. The formulation that left all of that out—the one designed to nourish the oral microbiome—carried out almost twice as properly. An in vitro examine can’t inform us precisely why. However whether or not these substances are interfering with the chemistry within the dish, or damaging the microbiome in an actual mouth, or each, the end result is similar. They get in the way in which.
What I instructed her to search for…
She was proper to be in that aisle. However earlier than she grabbed a tube, I gave her three issues to verify:
1. Depend the important oils and the botanicals. Tea tree, eucalyptus, thyme, wintergreen, peppermint, spearmint, anise—broad-spectrum antimicrobials. They kill the great micro organism together with the dangerous. Fruit and flower extracts—chamomile, aloe, mango—are beauty mimicry and potential oral microbiome disruptors.
2. Search for SCCS-grade nanoXIM—not simply any “nHAP.” The grade and particle spec matter greater than the proportion. A label that simply says “nHAP” tells you nothing about what model is within the tube, or whether or not anybody has ever evaluated it for whole-body security.
3. Learn previous “SLS Free.” Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate is a cousin of SLS. Cocamidopropyl Betaine is one other. They’re all surfactants, they usually all do the identical work to the cells in your mouth. “SLS Free” isn’t the identical as surfactant-free.
Because of this I co-founded Fygg, a formulation that treats the oral microbiome as a accomplice in remineralization, not collateral injury. After which we invested within the analysis to confirm it truly does what we designed it to do.
I hope this was useful. Hit reply if in case you have any questions or strategies for what you’d like me to jot down about subsequent.
Hold studying these labels,
Mark
P.S. Should you’ve already made the swap to nHAP, good for you. You’re forward of 95% of individuals. Now flip that tube round and browse the remainder of the label. That’s the place the actual distinction is hiding.
Additional Studying & Citations
Aires, A., Barreto, A.S., & Semedo-Lemsaddek, T. (2021). “Antimicrobial Results of Important Oils on Oral Microbiota Biofilms: The Toothbrush In Vitro Mannequin.” Antibiotics, 10(1), 21.
Amaechi, B.T., Tan, A.I., Noureldin, A.A.Okay., Kanthaiah, Okay., Holladay, E., Obiefuna, A.C., & Vijayaraghavan, M. (2025). “In vitro analysis of the power of nanohydroxyapatite toothpastes to reinforce remineralization of enamel caries lesion.” Journal of Dentistry, 161, 106006.