Aquafresh Iso-Active Foaming Gel

...owner of a can of Aquafresh Iso-active foaming gel and an intriguing little product called a Buzz Brush.

I'm a very loyal user of 'Aquafresh Multi-action and Whitening' - I've been using it for about 5 years now and I buy in bulk every time there's a special offer. Toothpaste generally has a 12 month shelf-life so it's one of the things that's quite safe to buy and store. I know with Aquafresh of any kind I should expect a strong flavour ...
...slightly translucent. If you associate Aquafresh with stripes - and why not, they spent years pushing that unique proposition at us - then you'll be disappointed. If anyone wants the detailed explanation of how to stripe a toothpaste, they can contact me through the guestbooks but be warned, I can bore for England on the topic of toothpaste as will soon become apparent. Suffice to say that the technology that enables striping is incompatible with ... more

About 4 years ago, I found myself sitting in a meeting room at an Italian company who were 'big in soap' and were thinking about branching out into toothpaste. They wanted to put toothpaste into a soap pump bottle. My technical colleague and I spent the best part of an hour explaining why it was 'very interesting' but not technically feasible because the paste would dry out in the nozzle and the pipe and would block it really quickly. If that same company had been in shaving foam and had wanted to put toothpaste in a foam canister, the explanation would have been the same - toothpaste comes in a tube for a lot of very good reasons both technical and economic so please just live with it.

So when I recently got a survey request in my inbox that told me that if I qualified I'd get a revolutionary new toothpaste and a new brush to try it with, I was really keen to give it a go. I spent the first 7 years of my career selling ingredients (thickeners and abrasives) to toothpaste manufacturers and the next 6 in the world of toothpaste flavours. It's all behind me now but I still retain an affection for the product on which I built my career. I had my doubts that a paste in a can format could be made to work but I also know GlaxoSmithKline to be one of the most thorough and conservative manufacturers around. If they said it worked then I had every reason to think they weren't just making it up. I completed the survey and sure enough, a couple of weeks later the postman stuffed a box through the cat-flap (don't ask!) and I was the intrigued owner of a can of Aquafresh Iso-active foaming gel and an intriguing little product called a Buzz Brush.

I'm a very loyal user of 'Aquafresh Multi-action and Whitening' - I've been using it for about 5 years now and I buy in bulk every time there's a special offer. Toothpaste generally has a 12 month shelf-life so it's one of the things that's quite safe to buy and store. I know with Aquafresh of any kind I should expect a strong flavour - it's what the brand is known for - but what else would I get from this nifty little can?

The can stands about 15 cm high (six inches for those still using old money) and it's just a shade over 4 cm in diameter. I don't generally buy products in aerosol cans so I can't easily compare that to other product sizes - but it's much smaller than a shaving foam and probably similar in size to some hair care products. The can is mostly blue and is of brushed metal finish. The print quality is sharp and clear. Once the lid's off you need to give a hard push to get the first dose out of the can - in fact I found this a bit disturbing as I needed two hands, one to hold it steady and one to push. So unless I grow an extra arm this isn't ideal. However, it seems that first dose breaks the tamper seal and after that it's much easier to dispense. You are advised to rinse the nozzle after use but I only just noticed that when re-reading the instructions. My guess is that most people won't remember to do that - I certainly know my husband wouldn't and that's why I thank my lucky stars for separate bathrooms. This is not a paste to use whilst wandering round the house (sounds odd I know but some people do things like that). Stay close to the sink as you'll froth at the mouth like a rabid dog.

The paste comes out deep blue and slightly translucent. If you associate Aquafresh with stripes - and why not, they spent years pushing that unique proposition at us - then you'll be disappointed. If anyone wants the detailed explanation of how to stripe a toothpaste, they can contact me through the guestbooks but be warned, I can bore for England on the topic of toothpaste as will soon become apparent. Suffice to say that the technology that enables striping is incompatible with bag-in-can packaging. Controlling the amount that comes out is less easy than with a standard paste. I'm an electric brush user and I'm not sure I'd have the dexterity to get an accurate dose onto a small Oral B brush head. But in the interests of trialling the products, I put my stripe of paste onto my new Buzz-brush and went for it.

The Buzz-brush looks like a normal toothbrush but it vibrates. I'll say no more than that as the review is about the paste and not the brush. I found it best to get the brush into my mouth before switching on the buzz. Whilst brushing the paste does start to foam up and it's noticeable that what you spit into the bowl is a lot more frothy than with a normal toothpaste. In the mouth I didn't get a particular sensation of foaming action - it's not like it 'fizzes' or anything like that - and it's hard to tell how much of the foaming is down to the paste, and how much to the brush. I've tried my regular paste on the Buzz-brush and that also came out more aerated than normal.

The important thing though, is how did my teeth feel after? Well I'll admit that I was surprised - really surprised. My teeth felt incredibly clean and smooth - even many hours after brushing. I'd just stocked up on mouthwash last weekend but there was no sense that I needed it after using this product. The flavour is long lasting - it's just a shame that it's not a flavour that I particularly like. If you are a fan of Colgate products, which tend to contain a lot of anethole in their flavours, giving them an aniseed/liquorice note, then you might like this. But I really strongly dislike that note and it put me off at first. The great thing with toothpastes though, is that after a relatively short time, you get used to the flavour and after a week of using this, I hate it a lot less than I did before.

TIME TO GET TECHNICAL

So what's in it and why is it there? Yes, sorry guys, there's an ingredient listing coming up but I think it's actually quite important with a novel product so bear with me and I'll try to explain what makes this unusual. This could be the longest discussion of an ingredient list you've ever read so be warned but equally be assured that I didn't just make it all up.

Ingredient Listing :
Aqua, sorbitol, glycerine, hydrated silica, PEG-6, sodium lauryl sulphate, isopentane, aroma, carrageen an, xanthan gum, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium saccharin, sodium fluoride (0.32%), sodium hydroxide, CI 42090, Limonene.

The first thing worth knowing about a toothpaste ingredient listing is that it starts with the largest percentage component and then works down to the ingredient that's present in the smallest amount. A normal silica-based toothpaste would contain around 20% of silica typically two types - one to thicken and one to clean - but this one can't have that much as it's only listed in fourth place on the ingredient declaration. My guess is that they've dropped the silica to a level much lower than most toothpastes to prevent it drying and blocking the nozzle. What this means is that you'll get much less physical cleaning particles in the paste so they need to rely on what I'd call chemical cleaning - or detergency/foaming. My regular Aquafresh variant ingredient listing starts with Aqua (i.e. water) and then silica. This one has far more than normal levels of sorbitol and glycerine which are both humectants - they stop the paste from drying out. PEG-6 is a type of Polyethylene Glycol that's used partly as a thickener and partly to protect anti-tartar ingredients in toothpastes. The strange thing is that there aren't any anti-tartar ingredients in this paste. I'm guessing the PEG is in at more than 3%.

Sodium lauryl sulphate is the most commonly used detergent in toothpaste and in a standard toothpaste it would be present at around 1% in Europe and anything up to 2% in the Far East where they really like a lot of foam. Here though I suspect it's more than 2% because the Isopentane is the only flammable ingredient in the formulation (except for the limonene that's present at a tiny level) and the can tells us that '2% by mass' of the content is flammable. SLS at more than 2% accounts for why the teeth feel so clean - but if you have any sensitivity, tendency to get mouth ulcers or sores, keep away from this paste. 2% would be way too high and more than 2% is off the scale for a European paste. Don't go looking at all the horror stories on the internet about SLS - it's not bad unless you are sensitive and there are a lot of people scare-mongering on the net, but this IS a really high level. They need it because there's so little silica in there to do the cleaning.

Isopentane is a gas - it's a big brother or sister of methane or ethane just with a longer chain. Let's leave it at that level of science and not go further. My assumption is that this is the stuff that causes the foaming and I've not seen it ever listed in a 'normal' toothpaste. The manufacturers website says that the paste has a special gas that's activated by the temperature of the mouth and as isopentane is often used in shaving gels which foam up on being rubbed into the skin, the story does fit together. Aroma/flavour is next - I'd take a guess at 1-1.5% because it's a powerful flavour, then we get two additional gelling agents - carrageenan and xanthan gum. There's always a gum in a toothpaste - usually carboxy methyl cellulose - but getting both carrageenan and xanthan together is unusual. My guess is that with so little silica, they need the gums to give the structure.

Cocamidopropyl betaine is another detergent - it's normally found in formulations for kids or sensitive teeth. I can only think it's here to give EVEN MORE foaming and detergency. Perhaps they reached the legal limit for SLS and still wanted some more. Saccharin is next on the list - you'll find that in 99.9% of all toothpaste and it's nothing to worry about although the level is higher than normal - it's more than the level of the fluoride which at 0.32% is itself about 30% higher than normal. I wonder if the fluoride it's just not as stable in this formula and is so being a bit over-dosed? It's close to 1500 ppm compared to a normal level of around 1000 in most pastes and 1100 ppm in my normal variant. Sodium hydroxide is present at a low level, probably just to adjust the pH slightly then there's CI42090 which is the blue colour. Limonene, the final ingredient, is an ingredient that comes from the peels of citrus fruits and is normally used as a powerful oil-stripping solvent. However, it also appears in my normal toothpaste so it might just be used for its flavour properties. Either way it's nothing to be concerned about as it's present at a very tiny level.

OK, THE TECHNICAL STUFF HAS FINISHED - WELCOME BACK

The key question I guess is whether this paste is exciting enough to get me off my normal product and paying probably quite a lot more for this one. The answer for me is no. It's novel, it's fun but it doesn't fit my lifestyle or preferences for a number of reasons.

First it's too bulky - I travel a lot and I like a normal tube that gets smaller as it's used rather than a can that stays the same size. How would I know when it was nearly empty? You can be sure it would happen when I was miles from civilisation or a pharmacy. Also I don't want to throw away something so bulky when I can throw away an nice squashable tube

Secondly it doesn't contain the whitening ingredients that I like. My normal Aquafresh multi-action and whitening is a great product and contains a whitening agent that I trust. This iso-active doesn't and I'd expect my teeth to get yellowed if I stopped using the normal product.

Thirdly, I don't like the flavour as much as my normal product - too much aniseed/liquorice in the flavour for me but I guess I could get used to that if I had to.

Finally, I am concerned about what this would do to my teeth and gums on a longer time scale. I love the ultra-smooth clean feeling but I suspect prolonged use would sensitise my gums and cause sores. There's just too much detergent in there for me.

So what's the future for me and the product?
Well I'm planning to leave it at home and just use it on the weekends. A boost to the feeling of smooth clean teeth once or twice a week should be enough for me and in the meantime I'll continue with my normal product.

If you get the chance to try this product then I recommend giving it a go but for me it's going to be a once in a while paste rather than an every day one. I can't comment on the cost as it was a free sample but I'm guessing it's likely to be around £3-4 a can. 

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