Toothpaste and Orange Juice – Not a Good Match

Ever wonder why orange juice tastes so bad after you brush

your teeth? You can thank sodium laureth sulfate, also known

as sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES), or sodium lauryl sulfate

(SLS) for ruining your drink, depending on which toothpaste

you use. Both of these chemicals are surfactants — wetting

agents that lower the surface tension of a liquid — that are

added to toothpastes to create foam and make the paste

easier to spread around your mouth. They're also important

ingredients in detergents, fabric softeners, paints, laxatives,

surfboard waxes and insecticides.

While surfactants make brushing our teeth a lot easier, they

do more than make foam. Both SLES and SLS mess with our

taste buds in two ways. One, they suppress the receptors on

our taste buds that perceive sweetness, inhibiting our ability

to pick up the sweet notes of food and drink. And, as if that

wasn't enough, they break up the phospholipids on our

tongue. These fatty molecules inhibit our receptors for

bitterness and keep bitter tastes from overwhelming us,

but when they're broken down by the surfactants in

toothpaste, bitter tastes get enhanced.

So, anything you eat or drink after you brush is going to

have less sweetness and more bitterness than it normally

would. Is there any end to this torture? Yes. You don't need

foam for good toothpaste, and there are plenty out there that

are SLES/SLS-free. You won't get that rabid dog look that

makes oral hygiene so much fun, but your breakfast won't be

ruined.

Joy Lunan DDS
819 Straits Tpke
Middlebury, CT 06762
(203) 598-7920
joyklunandds@jlunan.com
middleburydentist.com

BUSINESS

Cosmetic Dentistry

Joy K. Lunan DDS

819 Straits Tpke, Middlebury, CT 06762