Our Favorite Kids Toothpaste: The Toothpaste My Kids Actually Like Using
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AI Disclosure: This post was created with the assistance of AI and edited, reviewed, and personalized by me based on our family’s real-life experience.
I have one of those products that I have purchased for my kids for years and keep coming back to: KidScents Slique Toothpaste.
And one of the biggest reasons I keep buying it is pretty simple:
My kids have never had a cavity.
Now, I absolutely cannot say that one toothpaste is the sole reason for that. Dental health is influenced by so many things: brushing habits, genetics, saliva, diet, how frequently kids eat, the bacteria living in the mouth, fluoride exposure and probably factors we are still learning about.
But this is the toothpaste we have consistently used in our house, my kids actually like the flavor, and we’ve had a really positive experience with it.
👉 Shop KidScents Slique Toothpaste on Amazon
Why This Is My Favorite Kids Toothpaste
Finding a kids toothpaste sounds like it should be simple, but sometimes it isn’t.
Some children’s toothpastes are ridiculously sweet. Others have an overpowering bubblegum flavor. Some taste so strongly of mint that younger kids don’t like them at all.
And ultimately, a toothpaste isn’t very useful if your child fights you every single time you ask them to brush their teeth.
One thing I really like about KidScents Slique Toothpaste is that my kids like the flavor.
That matters more than you might think.
If children don’t mind the toothpaste, getting them to brush consistently becomes much easier. And consistency is one of the most important parts of taking care of their teeth.
I also really like the ingredient list, particularly ingredients such as xylitol, baking soda and calcium carbonate.
What Actually Causes Cavities?
Cavities aren’t simply caused by “eating candy.”
This is one of the biggest things I wish more parents understood.
There is an entire process happening inside the mouth. Bacteria in dental plaque metabolize carbohydrates from the foods we eat and produce acids. Those acids lower the pH around the teeth and can cause minerals to leave the enamel.
Saliva works in the opposite direction. It helps neutralize acids and supplies minerals that allow the enamel to recover and remineralize.
So throughout the day, your child’s teeth are constantly going through a process something like:
Eat carbohydrates → oral bacteria produce acid → pH drops → enamel loses minerals → saliva helps the mouth recover
If the mouth gets adequate recovery time, that’s one thing.
But if we keep introducing food over and over and over again, those acid attacks keep happening.
That’s where frequency becomes really important.
It’s Definitely Not Just Candy
This deserves its own section because this was something I didn’t always understand.
When we hear “sugar causes cavities,” most of us immediately picture gummy candy, lollipops, soda and cookies.
Those certainly matter.
But crackers matter too.
So can:
- Crackers
- Pretzels
- Bread
- Cereal
- Chips
- Cookies
- Granola bars
- Goldfish-type crackers
- Pasta
- Sweetened yogurt
- Dried fruit
- Juice
- Sports drinks
- Other carbohydrate-rich snack foods
The bacteria in our mouths aren’t looking at the package and saying, “Well, this isn’t technically candy, so we’re good.”
Many carbohydrate-containing foods provide sugars or starches that oral bacteria can ferment into acids.
Some starchy foods are especially easy to overlook because parents think of them as savory foods rather than “sugar.”
But starch is made from chains of glucose, and digestion of starch actually begins in the mouth. Salivary enzymes start breaking starch down into smaller carbohydrates, while bacteria in dental plaque can ferment available carbohydrates and produce acid.
That is why I don’t think the answer is simply:
Don’t give your kids candy.
I think a much better question is:
How frequently are their teeth being exposed to fermentable carbohydrates all day long?
Why Constant Snacking Can Be Such a Problem
Imagine this kind of day:
Breakfast.
A handful of crackers in the car.
A snack at school.
A few Goldfish.
Lunch.
A granola bar.
Some pretzels.
A sports drink after practice.
A little snack before dinner.
Dinner.
Dessert.
A bedtime snack.
Even if none of those things individually looks terrible, the child’s teeth may hardly get a break.
Every time we eat foods containing sugars or starches that oral bacteria can ferment, another period of acid production can occur.
Saliva needs time between eating occasions to neutralize those acids and help restore minerals to enamel.
This is one reason I have become much more interested in meal timing and snack frequency, rather than simply counting grams of sugar.
I don’t think kids need to live in a sugar-free bubble.
And I certainly don’t think a child eating a cookie with lunch is the end of the world.
But I do think there may be an important difference between enjoying something sweet with a meal and grazing on crackers, pretzels, cereal and snacks every 30 minutes all day long.
Sometimes it’s the foods that don’t look sugary that we forget about.
The pH of the Mouth Really Does Matter
Another part of this that fascinates me is pH.
After we eat fermentable carbohydrates, bacteria in dental plaque can produce acids. The environment surrounding the teeth becomes more acidic.
If those acidic conditions happen repeatedly, the balance begins shifting away from remineralization and toward demineralization.
Your mouth has natural systems designed to fight this.
Most importantly:
saliva.
Saliva helps wash away food particles, dilute and neutralize acids, and provide calcium and phosphate that help enamel repair itself.
This is probably part of why giving our teeth some breaks between eating matters.
And it brings me to one of the ingredients I like in this toothpaste.
Baking Soda — Sodium Bicarbonate
Sodium bicarbonate, otherwise known as baking soda, is one of the ingredients in KidScents Slique Toothpaste.
Baking soda is alkaline and can help neutralize acids. It is also commonly used in toothpaste as a mild cleaning and abrasive ingredient.
This is probably part of what I was remembering when I associated this toothpaste with helping support a healthier pH environment in the mouth.
That doesn’t mean baking soda makes somebody cavity-proof.
Nothing does.
But I like having it as part of the formula.
Xylitol
This is another ingredient I deliberately look for in oral-care products.
Unlike ordinary sugar, xylitol isn’t readily fermented by cavity-causing bacteria into the acids that contribute to tooth decay.
There has also been research into whether xylitol may affect cavity-associated bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans. The evidence isn’t strong enough for me to call xylitol some magical cavity cure, but I do like that it provides sweetness without feeding the cavity process in the same way ordinary sugar does.
And from a practical mom perspective?
It helps make toothpaste taste good.
My kids like it.
That’s a pretty important advantage when you’re trying to convince children to brush their teeth twice a day.
Calcium Carbonate
Another ingredient in this toothpaste is calcium carbonate.
Calcium carbonate is commonly used in toothpaste as an abrasive that helps physically clean plaque, food debris and surface buildup from the teeth while you brush.
When I first started looking more closely at toothpaste ingredients, I wondered whether calcium carbonate was primarily included to remineralize teeth.
That would be overstating it.
Its primary role in a toothpaste like this is cleaning and polishing.
Still, I like the relatively straightforward mineral-based cleaning approach.
Coconut Oil
KidScents Slique also contains coconut oil.
Coconut oil has become incredibly popular in natural oral care, especially with all of the discussion surrounding oil pulling and the oral microbiome.
There is interesting research surrounding coconut oil and oral bacteria, although I certainly wouldn’t depend on coconut oil by itself to prevent cavities.
For me, it’s one piece of the overall formulation rather than the reason I use the toothpaste.
The Oral Microbiome Matters Too
This is another area where I think our thinking about health has changed quite a bit.
For years, the mentality seemed to be:
Bacteria = bad. Kill all bacteria.
Now we know it is much more complicated.
Our mouths contain entire communities of microorganisms.
We don’t necessarily want a sterile mouth.
Instead, problems can occur when the environment starts favoring certain acid-producing organisms and repeated exposure to carbohydrates allows those organisms to continually create acids.
So for me, oral health isn’t only about killing germs.
It’s about creating an environment where teeth stay healthy.
That includes:
Brushing.
Diet.
Saliva.
Food frequency.
The oral microbiome.
Mineral balance.
And what we’re putting on our teeth every day.
What About Gut Health and Cavities?
I have also always suspected that there is some connection between overall health, gut health, nutrition, bacteria and oral health.
I still think that’s a fascinating area.
However, I would distinguish between the gut microbiome and the oral microbiome.
There is research looking at connections between oral bacteria, the gut microbiome, nutrition and systemic health, but I don’t think we have enough evidence to say:
Fix your gut and your children won’t get cavities.
I wish health were that simple.
I absolutely care about my children’s overall nutrition and gut health. I think the body is interconnected far more than we used to acknowledge.
But I also don’t want to replace basic oral care with the idea that a probiotic or supplement is going to magically fix someone’s teeth.
And Then There Is Hydroxyapatite…
If you have looked at “clean” toothpaste lately, you’ve probably seen hydroxyapatite toothpaste everywhere.
Hydroxyapatite is a calcium-phosphate mineral similar to the mineral naturally found in teeth and bones, and it is being marketed heavily as a remineralizing ingredient and often as a fluoride alternative.
Some of the research on hydroxyapatite is genuinely interesting.
I’m watching it.
But I’m personally not completely sold yet.
Part of what makes this confusing is that “hydroxyapatite” doesn’t always mean exactly the same formulation. Some products use larger hydroxyapatite particles, while others use nano-hydroxyapatite, which has created more discussion because nanoparticle size, shape and formulation can matter.
There were earlier safety concerns and gaps in available data surrounding some nano-hydroxyapatite materials. More recent European scientific reviews have concluded that certain specifically characterized forms of nano-hydroxyapatite can be considered safe at specified concentrations, while continuing to distinguish those materials from other particle shapes and formulations.
So I don’t think it would be accurate to simply say:
Hydroxyapatite is dangerous.
That’s not where the evidence currently stands.
But I also don’t think the enormous wave of marketing automatically means every hydroxyapatite toothpaste on Instagram is something I need to put in my children’s mouths.
I’m Not Automatically Convinced by the Newest Health Trend
This is probably my bigger issue.
Something new comes along and suddenly it feels like every wellness company is selling it.
Then social media turns it into:
“You HAVE to use hydroxyapatite!”
“This is the only safe toothpaste!”
“Everything you’ve used before is toxic!”
“This completely remineralizes cavities!”
And I just don’t love that kind of health marketing.
Maybe hydroxyapatite ends up being fantastic.
There is promising research.
But promising and proven are not always the same thing.
And one form of an ingredient isn’t necessarily identical to every other form of that ingredient.
For our family, I tend to be slower about jumping onto those bandwagons.
I want something that actually works.
I want something that has a good safety profile.
I want something my children will actually use.
And ideally, I want years of evidence rather than just a product that happens to be trending.
It Can Be Exhausting Trying to Keep Your Family Healthy
This is probably the part of parenting and health that frustrates me the most.
Why does it require so much digging?
You start looking for something as basic as toothpaste and suddenly you’re researching:
Fluoride.
No fluoride.
Nano-hydroxyapatite.
Regular hydroxyapatite.
Xylitol.
Artificial sweeteners.
Essential oils.
Microbiomes.
Endocrine disruptors.
Artificial dyes.
Preservatives.
And twenty minutes later, you’ve somehow opened 17 tabs trying to figure out which toothpaste your child should use.
It’s exhausting.
And it’s like this with so many things.
Food.
Skincare.
Sunscreen.
Supplements.
Cleaning products.
Personal-care products.
Kids products.
Sometimes I think, Why is it this hard to figure out what is actually healthy?
I’m always looking for products that aren’t simply “natural” because that’s what the marketing department printed on the package.
I want things that are actually effective and actually healthy.
And I think those are two equally important requirements.
“Natural” doesn’t automatically mean effective.
“New” doesn’t automatically mean better.
And “scientific sounding” doesn’t automatically mean something has decades of real-world evidence behind it.
Sometimes the boring product we’ve been using successfully for years turns out to be pretty great.
A Note About Fluoride
I do want to point out something important if you’re considering this toothpaste.
KidScents Slique Toothpaste is fluoride-free.
Our family has had a wonderful experience with it, and my children have not had cavities while using it.
However, mainstream dental organizations including the American Dental Association continue to recommend brushing with fluoride toothpaste because fluoride has substantial evidence demonstrating its ability to reduce cavities and support remineralization.
I think this is another one of those places where parents have to look at the evidence, talk with their dentist and decide what makes sense for their particular child.
A child who already has cavities or is considered at high risk for decay is a very different situation from a child who has never had a cavity.
Our experience is simply:
This is what we’ve used, this is what has worked beautifully for our family, and our kids have remained cavity-free.
That isn’t the same thing as promising another family’s results.
The Dental Habits I Think Have Made the Biggest Difference
If I had to boil down what I think has contributed to our kids’ healthy teeth, it wouldn’t be one magical product.
I think it’s the combination of several things.
Consistent brushing
Even the best toothpaste isn’t going to do much sitting in the tube.
A toothpaste my kids actually like
This makes consistency much easier.
Not assuming that only candy matters
Crackers, breads, cereals, pretzels and other starchy foods can contribute to the cavity process too.
Being mindful of frequent snacking
I want my children’s teeth to have some actual recovery time instead of being exposed to food every twenty minutes.
Water between meals
Rather than constantly sipping juice, sports drinks or other sweetened beverages.
Supporting overall nutrition
I care about protein, minerals, vitamins, whole foods, gut health and my children’s overall health—not simply their teeth.
Regular dental care
Home care doesn’t replace having a dentist actually evaluate your child’s teeth.
And, for us:
Using KidScents Slique toothpaste.
Why I Continue Buying It
At the end of the day, I keep buying KidScents because it checks a lot of boxes for me.
My kids actually like it.
They don’t complain about the flavor.
It contains xylitol instead of ordinary sugar.
It contains baking soda.
I like the relatively simple ingredient list.
It cleans well.
And most importantly:
We’ve had a really great dental history while using it.
My kids have never had a cavity while using this toothpaste!
Could I prove this toothpaste is the reason?
No.
We had a kid switch away from it, get her first cavity and go back and haven’t had an issue since. I do believe it had something to do with this paste.
I’m sure our experience comes from a combination of genetics, diet, brushing, dental care, food frequency, saliva, oral bacteria and probably a few things we don’t even completely understand yet.
But when something has worked beautifully for our family for years, I’m generally not in a hurry to replace it simply because a newer, trendier ingredient appears.
I keep researching.
I keep learning.
And if something genuinely better comes along with excellent evidence behind it, I’m happy to consider it.
But until then?
I’m sticking with what has worked.
Shop Our Favorite Kids Toothpaste
👉 KidScents Slique Toothpaste on Amazon
This post reflects our family’s personal experience and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical or dental advice. Talk with your child’s dentist about the best toothpaste and cavity-prevention approach for your individual child.
