hello is a company that makes vegan (and therefore cruelty-free) oral care products: toothpaste, tooth brushes, mouth wash, and breath spray. Its tagline is “naturally friendly,” but I can’t find any evidence that the products are actually natural. But it is clear that they don’t contain alcohol or artificial sweeteners, colors, or dyes.
I was browsing the toothpaste at my local grocery store and saw hello toothpaste. It may sound strange, but I hadn’t even thought about cruelty-free oral care. So of course I bought two tubes to give it a try, excited that a cruelty-free toothpaste was available at the Giant! (Target, Walgreens, and CVS also sell hello, as does the online store Soap.com.) I tried the hello fluoride toothpaste in supermint and sweet cinnamint flavors. I really liked the supermint flavor. The cinnamint… not so much. It’s too sweet for me (but it’s probably great for kids). The toothpaste also comes in mojito mint and pink grapefruit mint flavors.
Aside from the flavor, I have two notes about the toothpaste:
- The toothpaste itself seemed to do a fine job cleaning my teeth and tongue. It was foamy (it does contain SLS), and a normal-sized glob was enough to do the job for 2 minutes of brushing.
- The “tottle” (hello’s toothpaste packaging that is a combination of a tube and bottle) looks great and stands up easily so you don’t have to squeeze much to get the product out. HOWEVER. When I got to what I thought was the last of the toothpaste (because I couldn’t squeeze any more out), I thought the tottle was still suspiciously heavy. So I cut off the top and, lo and behold, there was still a lot of toothpaste left at the bottom. Like, 15 more uses worth. I know because I dipped my brush down there to get the last of it.
So the short of it is that the product is good and the packaging is wasteful. If you don’t mind scooping your own toothpaste, I suggest giving hello a try.
Cruelty-Free Beauty 