We can find many useful pieces of information on social media and the Internet, but we must be careful to distinguish between fact and fiction. In this era where fake news is rampant, it’s important that we cross-reference our sources before believing anything. In the past few years, popular misinformation has been going around social media pertaining to the color strip on toothpaste tube. Online articles claim that these colors show what chemical composition is inside of each tube and we’re here to tell you whether or not there’s any truth behind this myth! The colored stripes story shows that the toothpaste that we use daily consists of at least one colored strip that may be blue, black, green, or red.
Social media posts claim that the green stripe means that the toothpaste is made entirely of natural ingredients, the blue stripe means a mixture of natural ingredients and medicine, the red stripe denotes the natural ingredients and chemical elements in it, and the black stripe means that the toothpaste is made of chemical elements only.
1. Black colored stripe – Toothpaste is made only of chemicals
2. Blue colored stripe – Natural + Medicine
3. Red-colored stripe – Natural + Chemical
4. Green colored stripe – All Natural
So, what is the reality?
Globally, the following chemicals are commonly found in toothpaste: Humectant material, Solid abrasive, Binding material, Sweetener, Flavoring agent, Surfactant, and Fluorides. Apart from this, toothpaste also contains many types of colors and flavors.
The social media claims do not specify which of the above chemicals are in toothpaste and whether they’re considered natural or chemical. The idea of distinguishing between “natural” and chemical ingredients is rather vague because everything in this world has chemicals, including natural ingredients. Even the word medicine can be generalized to anything that you ingest or apply topically on your body for medical purposes. As for the color strip on toothpaste tube, it has nothing to do with the product’s content, they are actually made during the manufacturing process. These strips are read by sensors and machines to determine where packaging should be cut, folded, or sealed.
So, if you’re curious about the contents of your toothpaste, the colored stripes on the bottom of the toothpaste are not what you should look at. Checking the ingredients mentioned on the toothpaste tube will be the right thing to do.
