Brushing With Baking Soda: 7 Amazing Benefits

Did you ever imagine your teeth twinkling like stars by just brushing with baking soda? A pure smile might come from the heart, but it gets depicted in your teeth. If there is anything that attracts people at first sight, it is your smile.

It can draw people to your side and make them run a long way as well. That depends on how well you manage to let your teeth shine bright, like those twinkling stars.

No matter how they are aligned, the purity in your smile lives out the situation. The brighter your teeth, the more people by your side. SUPPORT     

To gain you that purity, let us work a bit on advancing the shade of our teeth¹. We have come across too many products to improve the tone of our teeth.  They are like too many toothpaste, mouthwashes, cleansers, and toothpowders available in variant flavours. These are artificial that we know, and we are not well aware of the natural remedies that whiten our teeth. One of those natural remedies that we know is baking soda. 

And we have been into an exceptional mess in finding if this baking soda is helpful or not. Let us dive a little deeper into acknowledging both the pros and cons of brushing with baking soda to improve our teeth’ condition. 

Decolouration generally occurs with age and the consumption of a few foods like cola, coffee, tea, wine, etc.  As we grow older, the tooth enamel protecting us from cavities gets more diluted², due to which the enamel layer wears out and gives a yellow shade to our teeth. 

Decolouration due to food intake can be cured, but the fading of colour with age can never be brought to a normal state. No bleaching product would help us in this case. 

Baking soda is chemically termed sodium bicarbonate, which holds the chemical formula, NaHCO3. It is a compound associated with sodium, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon molecules. It is a base that reacts when combined with an acid. Coming to its physical texture, it is a fine, white crystalline which appears to be powder.

Baking soda has been a daily ingredient in our day-to-day use. We generally use it in baking, cleaning, and cooking.  And with all the earliest studies, it has made its way into our mornings too. It is proven that many toothpaste companies incorporated baking soda in manufacturing their products. It can fight against the repression of plaque³ and fights against bacteria.

1. 7 Amazing Benefits of Brushing With Baking Soda

1.1. Reduces Bacteria 

We generally eat a lot, especially at night, and fail to rinse our mouths and cleanse our teeth in a hurry to hit the hay. Then starts the attack of the germs onto our teeth.

These microbes tend to multiply vigorously at night since we have no scope to use any destructive remedies. So, baking soda’s pH values act as an effective source to remove the bacteria, reducing our mouth’s acidity.

Since the harmful bacteria flourish in acid conditions, their number gets down as the acidity weakens, with baking soda’s effect. Hence, brushing with baking soda cleans teeth and prevents bacteria.

1.2. Whitens the Teeth 

Decolouration occurs with the foods that we consume. Some of the foods that decolour include wine, coffee, tea, cola, and smoking reduces our tooth shade.

Baking soda has an inbuilt property to whiten teeth⁴ and is more effectively used in most toothpaste. It acts as a mild abrasive that removes stains, and baking soda whitens teeth.

1.3. Fluoride-Free 

Florine is as harmful as a poison when taken extensively. It causes pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, and kidney and heart problems too. Children below 6 years are to be kept out of reach of such toxins.

Yet, the toxicity is only out with too much consumption. Baking soda is free from fluoride content and is toxic-free. 

1.4. Inexpensive 

Baking soda is quite affordable and easily available in departmental stores, and grocery markets. It costs less than one dollar.  

1.5. Avoids Plaque and Gingivitis 

It is a plaque-free smile people admire and would never fancy seeing last night’s food stuck in between the filling of your teeth. There are some communities of bacteria attached to the teeth that cause problems like plaque and gingivitis.

Baking soda fights against such communities and gets us rid of the problems. 

1.6. Mouthwash 

Due to bacteria’s existence in our mouths for a lengthy interval, they produce some stinking smell. No one loves a faulty odour, and if you are one such person producing it, I am sure you will be avoided.

Having many antibacterial and antimicrobial properties that freshen our mouth odour, baking soda takes care of overall oral hygiene.

It can work better when a spoon of baking soda is mixed well in a cup of warm water to use as a mouthwash.

1.7. Gives Relief from Canker Sores 

A perfect smile comes out when you are well mentally and physically. Canker sores are a type of tiny mouth ulcer that is quite painful. These fluctuate your physical health.

According to a study, it is said that baking soda calms and sets you out of pain. It can even cure heartburn too.

Just like a coin has two sides, there is the other side to the issue. The flip version of the topic states the cons of using baking soda in brushing our teeth. 

2. Some Disadvantages of Using Baking Soda

2.1. Taste and Texture

We, humans, tend to prefer anything based on our taste. Our tongue doesn’t care if it helps or ruins our stomach.

It gives an unappealing taste because of which our mouth muscles resist its allowance. If we want to whiten our teeth, we have many more teeth-whitening products that give a better taste than baking soda.

And its texture makes you feel like you have sand into your body through your mouth. We will never seem like holding such a sensation. 

2.2. Lack of Flouride

As mentioned above, a limited amount of fluoride is in no way harmful. It blocks our tooth decay and prevents cavities.

Though it might give you brighter teeth, baking soda alone can never get you out of cavities. You can prefer regular toothpaste with a certain amount of baking soda to bleach your teeth.  

2.3. Less Dramatic Whitening 

It is proven that baking soda is certified for your dentin, and it does not give such a better performance as a teeth whitener.

Many other products that had hydrogen peroxide and microbead abrasives work much better than baking soda. It is even said that a few tubes of toothpaste are more stable at cleansing stubborn plaque than toothpaste that contains baking soda.

Baking soda is incapable of removing tough stains that are either internal or external.

2.4. Damages Enamel and Hurts Gums

Though sodium bicarbonate is good at whitening teeth, it impairs your tooth enamel and hurts. Once the enamel gets damaged, it triggers us to a lot of pain, makes our teeth sensitive, and our teeth delicate towards both hot and cold foods.

As we know, the enamel is the outer covering of our teeth, and once this shield gets damaged, it inclines to cavities excessively. Extensive use of this hurts our gums and causes bleeding too. 

2.5. Bad for Dental Glue 

 Those people who handle braces are not supposed to use baking soda in brushing, due to which the glue softens and loses the strength to hold the braces together.

2.6. Not Suitably Packed for Oral Aid 

Unlike toothpaste tubes, baking soda is not packed in tubes or spray bottles for our oral care. We can never guarantee that it is pure and hygienic. Moreover, it is nowhere advisable to use loose or cheap products for our oral health.                                          

Too much usage of baking soda can severely affect our health and our sensitive teeth. It leads to potassium blood scarcity, chloride blood deficiency, inflation in sodium levels, worsening kidney disorder, leads to severe heart failure, muscle instability, pains, and developed stomach acid generation.

3. In The End

Summing everything up, anything too much is bitter. So let us make this bitter, better taking an advisable amount. And, baking soda is never recommended to take solely.  It can be combined with toothpaste, reducing the effect that it causes. Since baking soda is fluoride-free and teeth whitening needs fluoride content, it can be mixed with water and used as a mouthwash.

You can even mix a small amount of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide ⁵to make a paste and use it on your teeth. This combo works quite well in removing surface stains and gives you clean teeth. A few practices are strictly warned not to do, mixing baking soda with vinegar or citrus fruits like lemon and using this mixture directly on your teeth. This act greatly increases the concentration as lemon juice is more acidic and affects your teeth, causing mouth ulcers and gum damage. 

Overusing or brushing with baking soda slowly removes the enamel coating and ruins this protective layer. It is only prescribed to use baking soda two times a week.

Daily usage is not at all encouraged, though it has a lot of benefits.  It is all a myth that salt sets your teeth white, and there is no study to prove it true. Even the myth of banana pealing of the yellow shade is not proven.

4. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is It OK to Brush Your Teeth With Baking Soda?

The American Dental Association states that baking soda is safe for daily use. It is a good idea to only use baking soda to brush the teeth once per day. Use good fluoride toothpaste to brush your teeth the rest of the time.

2. Can You Mix Baking Soda With Toothpaste?

Fluoride in toothpaste helps protect against cavities or enamel damage, and baking soda can help remove stains. Here’s how to use it: Mix one tablespoon of baking soda with two tablespoons of toothpaste. Use the paste to brush your teeth for two minutes.

3. Is Baking Soda Better Than Toothpaste?

Baking soda is a cheap, easy teeth cleaner. As a mild abrasive, it can lighten some stains and remove plaque. However, because it does not contain fluoride, it is not as effective at preventing cavities as regular fluoride toothpaste.

4. Can I Brush My Teeth With Salt Every Day?

Regularly brushing teeth using salt can substantially improve teeth and gum health.

1. Alhazmi, Khalid, et al. “Staining effect of herbal immune boosters used during Covid-19 pandemic on teeth shade: In-vitro study.” (2022). ↩︎
2. West, Nicola X., and Andrew Joiner. “Enamel mineral loss.” Journal of dentistry 42 (2014): S2-S11. ↩︎
3. Nozaki, Kosuke, et al. “Novel technologies to prevent dental plaque and calculus.” Water-Formed Deposits. Elsevier, 2022. 543-563. ↩︎
4. Lansky, Vicki. Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun, and Frugal Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought of. Book Peddlers, 2009. ↩︎
5. Urakov, Aleksandr. “Creation of” necessary” mixtures of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and warm water as a strategy for modernization bleaching cleaners of ceramic.” Építőanyag: Journal of Silicate Based & Composite Materials 72.1 (2020). ↩︎

Last Updated on July 22, 2024 by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology