Oral Hygiene Products: Cosmetic vs Therapeutic

We are taught from a very early age that brushing and flossing are two of the most necessary habits for keeping our teeth and gums clean. Due to such levels of awareness, now you can see hundreds of oral hygiene products like mouthwash, toothpaste etc on the market. However, in any case, these oral hygiene products will be required to abide by cosmetic regulatory compliance if they are to be sold on the market. Since it protects the interests of the consumers.

An oral hygiene product offers you fresh breath, preventing any tooth decay, decreasing plaque formation, prevention or decreasing gingivitis and also in reduction of speed of formation of tartar in the teeth.

But the public should remain alert about the level of safety and efficiency of all oral hygiene products.

Let’s understand this with an example. The American Dental Association takes immense interest in this, even when it is not a regulatory body. They require the manufacturer to submit a safety as well as efficacy data for the product. Verifying it the council is responsible to award the seal of acceptance to the specific product.

Although it is purely voluntary, the seal of acceptance is a very powerful endorsement factor for both the professionals as well as the customers. To get the seal for safety and efficacy, the manufacturers are needed to submit all data according to guidelines for proving every benefit that they claim.

In products where there is no necessity of clinical studies, there are certain guidelines for performing certain laboratory tests to prove the product efficiency.

Oral hygiene products assist in the reduction of caries, gingivitis, dental erosion, stain, plague etc. While some of the oral hygiene products offer a therapeutic benefit others provide cosmetic benefits. The cosmetic benefits offer temporary relief from bad breath but do not help in killing the bacteria. But on the other hand, the therapeutic products help in killing the bacteria and freshens up your breath automatically.

But there also exist some of the dentifrices that offer both cosmetic as well as therapeutic benefits. This gives a strong perspective on how manufacturers of oral hygiene products are evolving to offer both the therapeutic as well as cosmetic beneficial ingredients in the oral hygiene product.