Making your Own Cheap, Safe Eco-Toothpaste

Toothpaste is under bad times. From unnecessary exotic additives from abroad in to sol called ecotoothpastes to questionable chemicals in mainstream brands, there are not many sustainably options that don't become very expensive. After a few years of frittering away money on good quality brands or just going without safe toothpaste, I decided to do it myself. I am going to share three easy and affordable methods to make a commercial toothpaste. The methods I will provide vary from easier to harder, but they are all fairly easy and forgo the use exact measurements. This way you can work on the taste and consistency you are looking for.


Trial and error is a good process to follow, though with these steps you shouldn't err too much. I started with this and then found the ratio I was comfortable with.


The simplest method is Method 1. You can find these materials at a store, though I recommend checking the ingredients in the packaging. Method 1 will last you a few days.

Method 1:

Take a quart jar.

Add aluminum-free baking soda.

Add a fine salt. (for that scrubbing feeling)

Add a cold herbal tea such as peppermint and stir.

Add the herbal tea and stir until you have the consistency of toothpaste.


Methods 2-3 uses an essential oil that will give you a long lasting toothpaste. (If you are not using peppermint essential oil, make sure the alternative can be used for internal use).


Method 2:

Take a quart jar.

Add aluminum-free baking soda.

Add a fine salt(for that scrubbing feeling)

Add five drops of an essential oil such as peppermint.

Add water and stir until you have the consistency of toothpaste.


 Method 3 uses Bentonite Clay or Zeolites or both, to give you a toothpaste with a cleansing effect. Using the Bentonite Clay or another edible clay gives the toothpaste it's best past effect. Bentonite Clay (Sodium Bentonite) is used for cleanses as well as for its ability to supply the body with trace minerals. Zeolite is used for nuclear engineers exposed to radiation as it binds with radioactive particles and they are transported out of the body. It can be used as a tonic by those in a post nuclear world. It also has a good scrubbing action.


Method 3:

Take a quart jar.
Add fine Zeolites, or Bentonite Clay or a combination of both.
(The particle size of the zeolites need to be small, otherwise they will be too abrassive)
(Add a fine salt, if you don't use Zeolite for that scrupping feeling)
Add five drops of essential oil such as peppermint.
Add water continually and stir until you have the consistency of toothpaste.

Sustainability is a work in progress. Bentonite Clay or Zeolites might not be available in your area. In this case baking soda will be fine. Essential oils are nice, but a tea will be as useful and keeps it simple. I recommend buying your sources of herbs and essential oils from small or medium sized private companies or a local farm. Often they are ethically minded in procuring and making their products. There aren't many local sources of herbal products and oils, but like local organic farms, they are growing quickly.

If you're interested in what forest people used without baking soda, then look up toothsticks.

My writing skills are a work in progress too. I hope you enjoy this information and I will do my best to improve the quality of the output. Thank you for your time.

Making a Shoulder Bag with A lot of Help of my Friends

Words can not express the gratitude I have for Dori Village(in Korea) for helping me take my braintainned leather and turning it into a shoulder bag and to Alex Foreman who taught me months before how to make natural leather.

I came as a Wwoofer to work on their farm for room and board in the second week of September. Wwoofing stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms.

I brought some materials with me to work on in my free time.

I had with me a piece of leather that I had naturally tanned. (The process is a bit icky for some people, but it was a very natural way. Let's just say that it is called braintanning for a reason. The advantage of this method is that no chemicals are used in the whole process and the whole animal is used. 

Well, I took my leather piece out and the mother of the family was enthusiastic that I was interested in leather making. I discovered she was a leather maker at some point in her life and she was very happy to help me make my bag. 

Yangjae님(nim), (Nim, mean's sir. It's polite and necessary), her son translated for her mother and advised me that instead of cutting the leather, fold it. His mother showed me where to put the seam and how to use the tools she gave me. Instead of the needle and thread I was using, she gave me a hammer and aw to make holes so I finished the bag with those.

The measurements were taken and special leatherworking tools were given to me.

The final result. 

I sized the strap by checking it against my body.

I kept the flap uneven to give the bag a bit of an edgyness to it. 

It was a beautiful learning experience and I'm very happy with the result. This bag had been something in mind since July. It could have been the time that my needs were supposed to have been met by a good teacher. Yay for making things.

Personal Assessment as Happy Bear Eats Leader and the Future

The Happy Bear blogging experience was great. Our presentation of organic restaurants, and eco-tour options in Jeollabukdo had a positive influence on over two thousand people who read the blog and an even better influence within smaller circles of bloggers and our groups of friends. We did make some positive change in this world which we can feel happy about.

I really felt the positive effects on the last day of the Hansik Tour for Foreign Food Bloggers. That day all the competing teams had to give a presentation which the judges would score, add the scores from the other categories all together, and then announce the winners.

The presentation I gave, was primarily made by Mike who had done a lot of work to make it pretty and organized. Only we could attend, as the other Happy Bears had commited to a previously agreed day for the presentation until it was moved back to a day they couldn't attend.  I think they would have felt proud to see the presentation of our work.

When I had finished I felt the projects completion. Happy Bear left a really positive effect on the room of bloggers and Hansik judges by showing good people food tourism from an ecological and sustainable perspective.

Happy Bear Eats didn't win that day, but we did accomplish our goal to present food tourism from an ecological and sustainable perspective. Everyone else on the team did their best. We couldn't have dumbed down our message and maintained our integrity. Integrity meant something to us and changing our angle to a more advantageous one, would have diluted our message.

After such an experience I have had to assess how well I did as a blogger and as a leader.
As positives:

1. I had kept our message focused.
2. The plans for the tour I made with Mike were good.
3. I made and designed the layout for Happy Bear Eats blog.
4. I gave a good and enthusiasitc presentation to Hansik and the blog.
5. I promoted the blogs on twitter
6. I was constantly on the phone to get questions answered.
7. I made a facebook page.

I wasn't all positives of course. It hasn't been easy to assess myself particularly when I had had only enough time to just do things.  When I finished the contest so much time had elapse from the beginning that it was hard for me to remember all the details. However, people around me who care about me have properly criticized my mistakes.  My closest friend in Korea has helped to focus my own criticism of myself. Being on the team,  he was present for my worst moments and endured more then the others. He sent me an email to express my behavior of late.

He told me of negative actions that have formed a perception of me as a person by others. I can say with certainty that as a leader these character flaws came out when under stress. I was under the pressure to get the job done. However, I am lucky to have a friend who cares enough about me to give such an honest criticism from which I can change negative behaviors.

But right now I wish to explain more specifically the problems my friend so rightly criticized.
I read the email and after summarizing his points, I formed this picture in my head:

As a leader my vision was strong but communicating it could be laborious and long-winded for my team mates. People listened to lectures on phone or read them by email that were sometimes confusing because my language could be ambiguous. The vision was agreed to by Mike and I, however, in the details and implementation, I was adamant about editing and focusing the message. This perhaps is necessary as a leader. However, this is where there were problems.  I would retract articles and re-wrote certain sections. I editorialized writing when my own writing often had spelling mistakes, repetitions, and grammatical errors. Regardless of it being possible to judge good writing as a poor speller, its just not up to the standard of many people of my education to want a person who shows weak writing to edit other peoples writing. I often argued my ideas very strongly. Sometimes, during the contest I was short tempered with others.

So in summation, I was sometimes:

1. confusing others with ambigious explanations of my vision and instructions.
2.  insensitive to others people's feelings.
3. arguing against other peoples ideas very stubbornly while presenting my ideas loudly
4. sloppy with my own writing.
5. impatient and short tempered with others in some situations.

So sometimes it seems that I wasn't clear and I was difficult to please, impatient and sloppy. I was inconsistent.
On the other hand Mike has pointed out that I often made clear how much I appreciated the hard work of others.

So I was difficult, but I was also appreciative.

I appreciated others whose work I couldn't have as well without a team a capable writers with different strengths: from Tanya's beautiful celebrations of food, Mike's insight into ethics and organics, and Andy's and Anina's food reviews which gave the food the attention it deserved.

So my grade for my leadership is maybe a B-. There was good work but there is room for improvement. And I can do better.

The future of Happy Bear is unknown. I see potential of it as an ECO Seoul Eats meets EcoTourism. I see other eco-options as well. I can't decide myself however since Happy Bear Eats was a group and could still be a group. Continuing it or transforming it would need to be a group decision or at least have everyone's blessing.

Why continue it you may ask? Well, Happy Bear Eats had a mix of different personalities and interests with a common interest for eco and natural style living. I mentioned before that the writing had a richness. What I meant by that comment was that there was a richness of perspectives. Visitors to the blog had or will have source for reading about ecotourism options in Korea with different personalities who offered something different for each eater. It also gave us a bigger audience. Our personal blogs have never received so much attention individually then we have as a group.

Whatever happens, I see a lot of potential for good projects that will link together the good and positive people for environmental change.