The $100 Tube of Toothpaste Is Here. Is It Worth It?
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Twice a day we carry out the same old minty ritual—several up-and-down strokes, rinse and spit. If the experience is a bore, most of us shrug it off as the price for shiny whites. But now, a new crop of tubes aims to make your toothbrushing experience a little more lavish—and expensive.
With a combination of unique flavors and Instagram-friendly packaging, high-end toothpaste is here, and it’s garnering praise for getting people more involved with their gnashers, despite price tags that top out in the triple digits.
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“If people love something, it’s hard to put a price on that,” Jessica Hilburg, associate professor of dental medicine at the Touro College of Dental Medicine, told Bloomberg. “If it makes them want to brush three times a day, then it is worth more.”
So, you may be more motivated to brush when you’re not cracking open a ho-hum tube of Crest, but exactly how much can one expect to pay for this decadent mouth-freshening experience—and is it worth it?
First, at the lower end of the spectrum, is beloved Italian brand Marvis: The luxury toothpaste, founded in 1958, has the adorable vintage-inspired packaging of yesteryear and comes in an array of mouthwatering flavors, like jasmine, cinnamon and licorice. It’s sold at Barneys New York, Mr Porter and Sephora for around $12 a tube. Next, there’s Twice, a high-end toothpaste championed by Lenny Kravitz which is available in two types: Early Bird (wintergreen and peppermint) and Twilight (peppermint with vanilla and lavender). A pack of two will set you back $17.
Australian brand Aesop’s sea buckthorn, cardamom and wasabi riffs come in at $17 a pop. Meanwhile, French brand Buly 1803—whose fluoride-free toothpaste comes in flavors such as apple, mint-corriander-cucumber and orange-ginger-clove—is sold through Net-a-Porter for $29 per tube.
Of course, those prices seem downright quaint when compared to Theodent, the most ornate entry in the market: One 3.4-ounce tube of its high concentrate version runs for $125. First launched back in 2012, Theodent’s formula incorporates cocoa beans—but contains no sugar or cocoa fat and tastes nothing like chocolate—as well as a fluoride alternative called rennou. Rennou was discovered by a team of New Orleans researchers who found that it actually caused microscopic unit crystals of the tooth enamel to grow larger, resulting in stronger teeth.
Like its less expensive competitors, the tube is easy on the eyes. The concentrate comes in a pastel pink and white tube, with bold all-caps lettering and the requisite retro touch. If you really can’t justify parting with a Benjamin for a tube of toothpaste, the classic option—with luxe gold and brown accents—costs $16 for the same size tube.
Last year, the global toothpaste market was valued at a whopping $26 billion and it’s expected to hit $36 billion by 2024. So luxury toothpaste could be here to stay. Of course, amid all these high-priced alternatives, Hilburg says the best toothpaste to buy is the one that you will actually use, so whatever gets you pumped to shine your ivories should be the paste you purchase—even if it’s $100.
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