I used to be in Los Angeles final week visiting one among my daughters, and he or she took me to Erewhon. (Fortunately, for the report.)
In case 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 in every single 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 things exterior 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 available on the market was a compromise. Boka was the best choice obtainable for some time—and I used to advocate them. They acquired 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, “Have you learnt something about these?”
I instructed her I’d know a factor or two.
We acquired to speaking. She’d heard about nHAP from a podcast. She was selecting a toothpaste primarily based on the one ingredient she’d heard of, however neglecting to think about 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. Totally different chemical title, identical class of ingredient, identical foaming-and-stripping impact on the cells the micro organism in your mouth rely upon. It’s a softer model, but it surely’s nonetheless a surfactant! “SLS Free” has turn 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 person 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, probably the most 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. (though 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 best way 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 isn’t any remineralization with out the oral microbiome.
Your enamel can not 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 group that produces nitric oxide, which helps cardiovascular well being. They convey along with your intestine and your mind via what researchers now name the oral-gut-brain axis. They maintain unhealthy 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 maintain your whole 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 elevate issues,” as a result of eradicating them means “an imbalance can happen resulting in an infection or oral illness, turning our resolution 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 effectively 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 have been 500 to 2,000 nanometers, which, by in the present day’s requirements, aren’t nano in any respect.
They’re micro-particles. Ten to forty occasions bigger than what nano truly means now.
After all you wanted 10% of that. You want a variety 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 price asking a few toothpaste. And that is the place we dentists are inclined to get narrow-minded…
We have a tendency give attention to 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 via the skinny tissue of your mouth. It finally ends up swallowed by accident. It leads to your intestine. The precise query isn’t simply “does it work on my enamel?” It’s additionally “is it secure for my complete physique?”
That’s the place the SCCS is available in…
The Scientific Committee on Shopper 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 have been so thorough, however I digress!
In June of 2025, the SCCS printed their most up-to-date opinion on nano-hydroxyapatite. They usually have been particular. Rod-shaped particles. Uncoated. Unmodified. Sure facet ratios. Not needle-shaped, which they explicitly flagged as doubtlessly dangerous. Particles assembly these precise specs, and solely these specs, they thought of secure.
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 can be shed out over time.”
In plain English: these particular particles don’t accumulate in your physique. Cells that occur to choose one up get shed naturally, the best way cells in your mouth already do.
That could be a big deal. And it solely applies to the precise type of nano-HAP the SCCS evaluated.
The nano-HAP we use in Fygg known as nanoXIM, made by a Portuguese firm known as Fluidinova. The particles are about 30 nanometers lengthy and 15 nanometers extensive. Rod-shaped. Uncoated. Precisely what the SCCS accepted for whole-body security.
The analysis we invested in…
Full disclosure: I’m a co-founder of Fygg. You already know that. One of many issues I insisted on from the start was that we truly spend money on impartial analysis…to not show we’re proper, however to seek out out if we’re. Any model that asks to your belief must 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 the planet. We requested a particular query: how does our formulation examine towards each different main nano-HAP toothpaste, and towards fluoride toothpastes, in head-to-head remineralization?
Each product within the examine produced vital remineralization—according to the broader literature exhibiting that each nHAP and fluoride can rebuild enamel.
And towards prescription-strength fluoride (ClinPro 5000) and commonplace 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 full of 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 practically twice as effectively. 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 outcome is similar. They get in the best way.
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 unhealthy. 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 share. 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.
For this reason I co-founded Fygg, a formulation that treats the oral microbiome as a companion in remineralization, not collateral harm. 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 recommendations for what you’d like me to jot down about subsequent.
Preserve studying these labels,
Mark
P.S. In case you’ve already made the swap to nHAP, good for you. You’re forward of 95% of individuals. Now flip that tube round and skim 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.Ok., Kanthaiah, Ok., Holladay, E., Obiefuna, A.C., & Vijayaraghavan, M. (2025). “In vitro analysis of the power of nanohydroxyapatite toothpastes to boost remineralization of enamel caries lesion.” Journal of Dentistry, 161, 106006.