A trendy new class of oral care brands are repositioning toothpaste — an unglamorous necessity — as skincare, but for your mouth. 

Increasingly, dental care brands are adopting beauty buzzwords like “prebiotic,” “microbiome,” and “peptides,” terms and ingredients typically applied to skincare products. It’s a phenomenon known as “skinification,” or the application of skincare trends and jargon to non-skincare products. We’ve witnessed the skinification of makeup — via foundations and concealers infused with skin-loving ingredients like hyaluronic acid and niacinamide — and hair care, exemplified by hair serums and scalp exfoliators. 

Basically: Skinification is driven by the belief that your entire body deserves to be treated just as diligently as your face. With the skinification of oral care, brushing and flossing twice daily is no longer enough — consumers are encouraged to optimize their dental routines with fancy-sounding ingredients, “cleaner” alternatives to fluoride, and elevated packaging.

On March 19, MOON Oral Beauty (which boasts Kendall Jenner as a “co-creator”) released what it describes as an “oral beauty wand.” On one side, the dual-ended pen offers a tooth whitener formulated with lavender oil and honeysuckle leaf extract for “soothing” and
“cleansing,” respectively — functions typically associated with skincare products. At the other end is a moisturizing lip treatment, or as MOON puts it, a “lip brightener.” 

The product looks less like something you’d see at a dentist’s office and more like something you’d find at Sephora. The same goes for Theodent, a toothpaste brand that counts Lizzo among its fans. Priced at $100 for a 3.4-ounce tube, Theodent 300 (something like the Rolls Royce of toothpaste) prides itself on using Rennou instead of fluoride. According to Theodent, Rennou — a patented, organic compound sourced from cacao fruit — is safer to swallow than fluoride (that said, ingesting small amounts of fluoride is not toxic).

Theodent isn’t the only dental brand to advertise what it doesn’t contain: OJook, Dr. Brite, and Apa Beauty are all proudly fluoride-free (Ojook also states that its toothpaste is formulated without sulfates, preservatives, and synthetic flavors). With their focus on “safe” ingredients, these new-gen dental care brands seem to be repackaging the clean beauty craze for our mouths.

Beauty’s newfound focus on the skin microbiome — an ecosystem of healthy bacteria that helps fight germs and infection — is also making its mark on oral care. Gallinée, a French brand, offers a toothpaste formulated with prebiotics to support the beneficial bacteria colonies in your mouth.

Even skincare’s embrace of diamonds is infiltrating our brushing routines. Icy Bear Dental Care sells a whitening toothpaste that contains “one carat of finely ground diamond dust.”

The skinification of oral care might have you wondering: Do I actually need any of these fancy brushing products? Like a 14-step skincare routine, diamond toothpaste probably isn’t necessary. But it sure looks impressive!