This is the RIGHT amount of toothpaste you should use

In order to keep our sparkly whites shiny and healthy, we often use enough toothpaste to cover the entire brush head. If you do the same, you may be wasting way too much product, by using way too much toothpaste.

More often than not, it is the toothpaste advertisements that are to be blamed for this common misconception of using a generous amount of toothpaste for brushing.

In reality, you just need a pea-size amount of toothpaste to brush your teeth properly. When it comes to children, aged 6 and less, the amount is equal to a rice grain.

Yes, you read that correctly. This is because kids may end up swallowing some of the toothpaste, which may cause fluorosis i.e. brown spots on the teeth from too much fluoride.

While there is no harm to adults if they use more than the required amount of fluoride toothpaste, it is the bristles that do the real cleaning and most of the unused toothpaste goes waste.

The bottom line

You don’t need more than the blob size of a pea to keep your pearly whites as they are. The only purpose that toothpaste serves is it to provide fluoride–and whiteners in some cases–to your teeth, nothing more and nothing less.