Tom's of Maine

Tom's of Maine is a line of natural personal care products. They are made without artificial colors, artificial flavors, sweeteners, preservatives, or animal products.

Tom and Kate Chappell moved to Kennebunk, Maine in 1968 in order to "move back to the land". They found it difficult to find natural, unprocessed personal care products, and decided to create and market their own. The first item was a phosphate-free laundry detergent, which came with a postage-paid mailer so that people could mail the bottles back to be refilled.

Tom's of Maine now sells toothpaste, dental floss, mouthwash, deodorant, soap, shampoo, shaving cream, and miscellaneous health-care products such as decongestants. Although they are mainly sold in health food stores, many mainstream grocery stores in the US carry their products, especially the toothpaste. There are also many sites where you can order Tom's of Maine products online.

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Tom's of Maine toothpastes can be purchased with or without fluoride. While I don't think the American Dental Association will approve toothpastes without fluoride, ALL of the Tom's toothpastes with fluoride are ADA approved.

Tom's of Maine toothpaste is the only brand I know that has no sodium saccharin in it. I don't get why most toothpastes have saccharin in them, it tastes horrible and might give you cancer, just think everything else.

By the same token, Tom's of Maine toothpaste is not approved the American Dental Association, or whatever kind of organization approves toothpaste. Don't worry though, if my teeth are any indication the stuff works just as well.

However, if you're going to be forced to use normal saccharin toothpaste anytime in the near future, don't get too used to Tom's of Maine, because the normal stuff tastes horrible after a year or so of using Tom's.

The cinnamon variety of their toothpaste can give one a rather unpleasant tongue burn. Food didn't regain its full flavor for at least several days. However, I enjoy most of the other flavors. They're wonderful once you get used to 'em.
I can't really comment on the rest of their products, but I really didn't dig their decongestant. Tried it for the first time today. I mean, I think it worked okay, but it was full of honey, various unidentifiable chunks and tasted a bit like a heavily sugared tree stump. No disrespect to the Tom's people, but I'll take my narcotic NyQuil next time.

To clarify: Currently, most Tom's of Maine flouride toothpastes (except for new flavors like Gingermint) are now ADA accepted as proven decay-preventing dentrifices. However, since Tom's does not believe in animal testing they had to work with the ADA to develop alternate certification testing that was cruelty free, since the standard ADA acceptance tests involve animal testing. This was only done relatively recently (within the last year or two.) Thus, Tom's is the only ADA-accepted toothpaste that has not been tested on animals.

Tom's also makes varieties with propolis and myrrh as the active ingredients for those who believe flouride is a Communist plot to contaminate our precious bodily fluids. As mentioned above these are not ADA accepted.