MiEssence Toothpaste

Worst Natural Toothpaste – The toothpaste has become too diluted with not much taste of lemon and salt. The original recipe was a lot better except that it was too salty but had good lemon taste. Instead of lemon toothpaste, it's lemon water with not much lemon on it.

Best natural toothpaste – I've tried other natural toothpastes but this is the best one I've tried. My teeth feel clean, it has a good consistency and simple ingredients. It is also very soothing.

The toothpaste I've been looking for my entire life - a standout in the alternative toothpaste categ – I have used MiEssence products before and found some great (their mini roll-on botanical perfumes that they've now discontinued - why? - were fab) and some seriously...bad. Their shampoo & conditioner was appalling to my way of thinking. It didn't lather, left my hair limp and oily (and the packaging was truly abysmal - the conditioner spurt thing broke so many times (I kept repairing it) that I ended up hurling the bottle mid-way through, a nice waste of an expensive product ... but hey let's fact it: it wasn't doing the job anyway!).

Meantime, I've always considered this brand overpriced (which is not a problem when the product works, and rather a bigger problem when it doesn't). Given the brand didn't seem to be reliable across the board, I have for many years now given it a miss.

Then recently, I saw Miessense Toothpaste - Star Anise flavour - on a shop shelf and thought I'd give this brand another go. It was a $12+ purchase (again, too expensive to my way of thinking).

However, this toothpaste is LOVELY. It has a great consistency (some of these 'alternate toothpastes' are sloppy and drippy and squirt themselves everywhere but your toothbrush, some are gritty and stiff like dried liquid paper - gross!). Further, the ingredients are natural and so inoffensive (for those who care about such things, I do sometimes and don't at others) and the flavour of the anise in particular is fabulous. Combined with the subtle zing and buzz of baking soda, the star anise is just delicious. It's almost like eating a lolly (I'm an adult, but this toothpaste hits my childhood dream buttons!). The combination of ingredients leaves your teeth feeling very clean, white and smooth - totally refreshed. MiEssense have got it right this time.

The packaging is also (so far - only a few days in) quite good this time. Not your usual toothpaste packaging caper so we'll see how the packaging performs once I hit the last few brushes.

As far as alternative toothpastes go, this one easily trumps the many others I've tried - in various aspects, as I've outlined above.