(Review) Toothy Tabs: The Frothmaker (Part I)

 Don't you hate it when you wake up in the morning, after a full 8 hours rest (yeah right), and you roll over to find your partner trying to kiss you good morning with his/her rank morning breath?

Well I don't.  Because I'm single and I don't have to deal with that crap.  I am no man's spoon!

Well regardless of whether you're taken or not, morning breath stinks.  Literally.  I don't know about you all, but I have to brush my teeth the minute I wake up.  It really helps me snap out of that sleepy haze, and my day just starts so much better with a squeaky clean mouth.  For years I've been an avid user of Crest 3D whitening toothpaste.  I have mild calcium deposits on my front teeth, and I was told whitening toothpastes could help blend the white spots on my teeth in with the rest of them.  So I tried...and while I've used it for years, I've failed to see any dramatic results.  So one day, while at the checkout line at Lush, I saw a tiny little cardboard box of what looked like breath mints sitting by the register.  On a whim, I threw them in my basket, deciding to try them out.

And that, my friends, is how I found Lush's Toothy Tabs.  Toothy Tabs are solid toothpastes that look like small breath mints.  You take one tablet, crunch it up between your teeth (I like to pretend I'm a gerbil nibbling on a carrot when I do this) wet your toothbrush, and brush away!  The result is lots and lots of foam, a pleasant yet mild taste, and a fresh, clean feeling as well as squeaky clean teeth!

Detailed shot of Chou Chou I Love You

Toothy Tabs were invented as an alternative to gel toothpastes in aluminum packaging.  The packaging for toothpaste isn't environmentally friendly, and as a result sits stagnant in landfills, taking up space and adding to our already overly polluted planet.  Not only is it stagnant garbage, but as you squeeze out toothpaste, you're also squeezing out aluminum deposits as well, which have been proven toxic and responsible for certain illnesses like alzheimers and dementia.  Definitely not good.  Not only are Lush's Toothy Tabs packaged in ecofriendly cardboard packaging, but they're fluoride free as well.  For some this is a pro, for others it's a con.  Nonetheless, the baking soda base had me curious, and the concept of a solid toothpaste sounded cool, so why the hell not?

Lush currently has several flavors of Toothy Tabs out on the market.  I will be reviewing the three I currently have, and will be reviewing the final four at a later date.

    

We'll start off with Dirty.  Dirty is a great way to transition from gel toothpaste to Toothy Tabs because it has that spearmint taste we're all so used to.  Out of the Toothy Tabs I've tried, I find this one to be the most fragile.  Every time I go to take a tablet out of the box I get a little white powder from a tablet that broke or crumbled in the box.  Nonetheless, it's refreshing and the spearmint flavor is very mild, so you could probably drink a glass of orange juice afterwards without your mouth tasting like vomit (I personally despise orange juice, so you'll have to test that out for me).  I also find this the easiest to nibble, easily demolishing it with a few chews with my front teeth.  My teeth felt squeaky clean after using this, none of that fuzzy plaque feeling on my teeth.  So I think the only con would be that they're a bit fragile and easily breakable.

Ultrablast was the box I picked up that one fateful day on a whim at the register.  It intrigued me with the fact that it had lavender, and of all things, wasabi in it.  It's also advertised with triple mint, which is peppermint oil, spearmint oil, and fair trade organic dried spearmint.  Needless to say, out of the three, this was my least favorite.  I couldn't taste any mint at all.  I tasted a hint of lavender, but mostly I tasted the wasabi.  I don't much care for wasabi.  I don't even dab my California rolls in the thick, flubber green paste, so I thought the triple mint would be the dominant flavor.  Well I was wrong.  I was a bit hard pressed to finish the whole box, but I did it!  And while the taste was something I found unpleasant, the cleansing and whitening effects were astounding!  I did notice a difference in the color of my teeth.  They seemed so much brighter and whiter than they usually had.  Not that I had yellow corn kernels for teeth before mind you, but they just seemed...brighter.  Like they had a certain glow about them.  And again, no fuzzy plaque feeling on my teeth.  However, because I couldn't stand the taste, I won't be buying this one again.  Which is fine...because we're moving onto my favorite Toothy Tab right now...

 

...which would be Chou Chou I Love You!  Once a limited edition flavor for Valentine's Day, Chou Chou gained quick popularity and soon became a permanent item.  It has rose oil and lemon in it, and a coworker of mine described it as "a mouthful of Ro's Argan Body Conditioner, but in the best possible way."  And honestly I couldn't agree more.  It smells almost exactly like Ro's Argan!  These ones are a bit hard to chew though.  I had to give them a few hard cracks with my molars to break them up, but the taste is absolutely beautiful.  Chou Chou is my current toothpaste and I just love it.  It's like brushing your teeth with a less sugary sweettart.  Like the previous two Toothy Tabs, this leaves my mouth clean and my teeth bright, and the rose and lemon flavor lingers subtly on my breath.  So if some dashing young rapscallion were to break into my bathroom and kiss me after I was done rinsing, he'd be pleasantly surprised and pleased with such fresh, rosy breath!  ...and then I'd call the police on him, because I don't care if you're Alexander freaking Skarsgard, you do NOT break into my apartment!  That's just not cool.

So overall, Toothy Tabs are a clear winner in my book.  The baking soda and cream of tartar base for all of them cleans and gently buffs away stains and plaque, as well as producing a ton of Cujo, mad dog-like foam, and if you find the taste of minty gel toothpastes too strong, these have a much more subtle and mild taste.  And while I might not have liked the taste of all of them, I was very pleased with the cleaning power of all three.  They're ecofriendly, great for travel, and a new, fun way to brush your teeth!  What's not to love?

So let me know!  Have you tried any Toothy Tabs, and if so, what kinds and how did you like them?  And if you haven't, would you be open to the idea of a solid toothpaste?  This is only my second blog entry, and I'd love to hear from those of you who read it!  Thank you very much for taking the time to come to my little corner of the internet, and indulge in my passion for Lush cosmetics.  Stay tuned for more reviews and entries!