The First Toothbrush

3000 years B.C. marks the beginning of the toothbrush. The ancient Egyptians constructed their own unpolished toothbrush from twigs and leaves. Whereas other cultures such as the greeks, romans, indians just cleaned their teeth with plain twigs. Some even would fray one end of the twig so it could be penetrated between the teeth more effectively. 

The toothbrush as you know it today with hairs sticking out of a stick has been discovered by the ancient Chinese who made brushes with the hair of hairy pigs. The French were the first Europeans to promote the use of a toothbrush, and an Englishman named William Addis seems to be the first to mass produce the toothbrush in 1780. These were originally made from a bone and bristles made from boar hair, but soon were produced with wood. After that the toothbrushes were mass produced in plastic, too bad we were not able to see the consequences that we know nowadays. Plastic toothbrushes are almost impossible to recycle, and yearly millions end up in our oceans. So what better way to help nature out a little than by switching to a toothbrush made from bamboo. The toothbrushes from The Bamboovement are even used and recommended by dental professionals! 

History of the paste

The use of toothpaste goes back to 500 B.C. where both India and china were using it. However, the development of modern day toothpaste started in the early 1800s. The first ingredient used was soap and later on chalk. Can you imagine that you're literally cleaning your teeth with soap? Most of the toothpastes developed back then were powders. There even were some home made variants with ground charcoal! So you could say that our toothpaste tablets still remain with some old time wisdom, just compressed for a more convenient use.

In the late 19th century the first tubes, similar to modern day tubes, were introduced. Up until after World War II toothpaste still contained soap, just after that new ingredients, for example sodium laureth sulfate, were added to create a more smooth emulsion. Little did they know that you don’t even need these harsh chemicals to create nice and smooth paste with your own saliva! Nowadays toothpastes are mostly packed in polluting plastic tubes and contain a lot of harsh chemicals, colouring, artificial sweeteners and other unnecessary additives.

How do we want to see the future of oral care?

We would like to see a clean and sustainable movement for now and for the future ahead of us. Refillable sustainable packaging, no unnecessary ingredients or unnecessary use of water! This way we can stop polluting our oceans and minimize our ecological footprint.