Toms's of Maine Baking Soda Peppermint Toothpaste Out of Stock

January 16, 2021 5:57 PM

Toms's of Maine Baking Soda Peppermint Toothpaste. I love it. I can't find it.

The closest substitute I've had in the past was Trader Joe's peppermint toothpaste, which is good, but not identical. I live in an area with ridiculous COVID rates right now, so I'm trying to avoid shopping in person right now.

The Tom's product is the one with the orange label

(1) Does anyone know what's going on with Tom's? I'm having a hard time imagining there is a baking soda shortage, but if it's just a supply chain thing, I can wait another month or two.

(2) Recommendations for something similar that is available online now.

posted by soylent00FF00 to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

Have you tried their peppermint "Whole Care" toothpaste? It looks almost identical. I don't see the one you mention on the Tom's of Maine website.
posted by belladonna at 6:11 PM on January 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

It looks like that's been discontinued...
posted by pinochiette at 6:29 PM on January 16, 2021

Response by poster: For Peppermint Whole Care, 3 of the top 10 reviews are "Strips enamel", "foaming like Cujo" and "possibly counterfeit". This may represent a problem with Amazon reviews, not the product. :-)

I have not tried it, but if there's experience that suggests it's the logical successor, will be happy to.

But I see it doesn't list baking soda, which I felt was a key part of the flavor profile.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 6:33 PM on January 16, 2021

Best answer: We used to use the orange one and now use the purple one (peppermint Whole Care). It is fine. We switched some years ago after having trouble reliably finding the orange one in Canada.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:01 PM on January 16, 2021

Best answer: The Whole Care version does have baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) listed in the same location in the ingredients that the type you used places it. They just aren't emphasizing it in the front-of-the-box labeling. The only ingredient that is different is the "zinc citrate" in the Whole Care.

I have used Whole Care and not had any of the issues with foaming, enamel stripping, etc. I'd suggest that you just purchase it in-person from a local store and try it. I only linked to amazon's listing because it's easy to see the ingredients there.
posted by belladonna at 7:28 AM on January 17, 2021

Best answer: They sell their products on the Tom's of Maine website, and they have a Customer Service phone number and email address. You might try contacting them and seeing if they replaced your favorite product with another, and if so, what the differences are. Perhaps it was primarily an update to the name and look?
posted by happy_cat at 7:44 AM on January 17, 2021

Response by poster: Great suggestions: sounds like I should give the new Purple Pepperment Whole Care a try.

Still interested in hearing if anyone has suggestions for different brands which are similar...
posted by soylent00FF00 at 8:00 AM on January 17, 2021

You could also try "Nature's Gate" brand toothpaste. It's been a few years since I used it, but at that point the "creme de peppermint" version was pretty similar to Tom's of Maine.
posted by belladonna at 10:04 AM on January 17, 2021

Response by poster: Sadly, I must report back that the Peppermint Whole Care is not anything like the original Baking Soda Peppermint. Me and another tester both agree it tastes sour, has way too much pepperment in it, and doesn't do what we want in a toothpaste.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 4:15 PM on April 22, 2021