CriticalEye—March 12, 2025
Dr. Bronner's All-1 Organic Fluoride-Free Toothpaste contains 70% organic ingredients, reduces plaque, whitens teeth, & freshens breath. It doesn't contain artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or sweeteners. It also doesn't contain synthetic detergent foaming agents. And it tastes great! We've been flossing & brushing w/Dr. Bronner's toothpaste since 2015, & we’ve not suffered a single filling, crown, or root canal over these last 10 yrs. We’ve noticed, however, that sometimes the toothpaste can be or become a bit dry in consistency & a little difficult to press out of the tube, especially the older the toothpaste. Sometimes, it’s so dry that, once we get the toothpaste out of the tube, it can easily fall off our toothbrush, even when applying the toothpaste to pre-wetted bristles. This can happen before we're able to run water over the top of the toothpaste to try & get it seated on the bristles before brushing. So, the toothpaste could be a bit moister to make it easier to squeeze out of the tube & easier to adhere to the toothbrush bristles. We enjoy all 4 flavors, especially the Peppermint, Spearmint, & Anise. The Anise is reminiscent of, but not as strong as, black licorice, though it’s likely an acquired taste for some. On our dentist’s recommendation for maintaining good oral health, we’ve always brushed not only our teeth & gums but also the surface of our tongue where bacteria that causes bad breath often accumulates. One thing we’ve noticed is that the organic essential oils & menthol crystals contained in all 4 flavors can vary in intensity depending on the batch. This can result in milder or stronger flavoring from 1 tube to the next, which is not unusual & is almost expected for 'natural' & organic ingredients. For us, the spearmint, anise, & peppermint, in that order, have always been mild w/good flavor & not too much bite. The cinnamon, however, has often been so potent that it can really zing, if not create a burning sensation on our tongues after brushing them. So, if you’re a tongue brusher (& we hope you are), you might want to keep that in mind & buy just 1 tube of cinnamon as a test before purchasing multiple boxes of cinnamon at once. In our opinion, Dr. Bronner’s needs to convert their form of a Julian calendar mfg. date to the std. Gregorian calendar date. (Dr. B’s Julian date of mfr. is imprinted on both the endcap of their toothpaste boxes & the crimped bottom end of their toothpaste tubes.) As an example, Dr. B’s 6-digit alphanumeric code ‘N4248B’ signifies the following: the 1st numeral ‘4’ indicates the yr. 2024. (For starters, even if Dr. B’s were to continue using a Julian calendar date, & we hope they won’t, they should begin the numeric portion of their code w/2 digits, or ’24,’ in this case, to signify the yr. 2024. Here’s why. If you plug ‘4248’ into some of the online Julian-to-Gregorian calendar converters on your phone while shopping in the store, they’ll convert the Julian calendar date to the yr. 2042 instead of 2024. Moving on, the 3 remaining numerals of ‘248’ signify the 248th day of the yr. 2024, aka Sept. 4th. Then, to make their tricky code even more difficult to decipher for the avg. consumer, Dr. B’s bookends this 4-digit # w/2 letters that are completely unrelated to the mfg. date. As just 1 example of the confusion this coding can cause, for those of us who’ve had to buy replacement car batteries, most battery mfrs. list the mfr. date of their batteries w/an alphanumeric code, w/the letters ‘A-L’ representing the mo. of mfr. & the numerals ‘0-9’ representing the yrs. in the current or just-ended decade. In other words, ‘B4’ would indicate a Feb. 2024 date of mfr. & 'A5' would indicate a Jan. 2025 date of mfr. But w/Dr. B’s code, the ‘N’ & ‘B’ letters bookending their 4-digit numeric code are part of a lot/batch # that instead correspond, per the co., to the mfg. facility & the specific machine, respectively, at/on which the toothpaste tubes were filled/processed. While Julian dates can be common in the cosmetics industry, the Gregorian calendar dating system is by far the most widely used calendar system in the world, especially in business, in the food industry, & even in the cosmetics industry. The bottom line is that, at the critical moment of purchase, when the customer is trying to decide which tube of toothpaste he’s going to buy, Dr. B’s rather faint Julian date code imprint is confusing & opaque. It prevents or at least delays many customers from being able to immediately recognize the product’s date of mfr. & surmise how long that box of toothpaste has been sitting on the shelf or in a warehouse. And in this era of accelerating change, as consumer buying habits continue to shift from shopping at physical retail stores to ever increasing online shopping, companies are often shrinking, liquidating, or closing their physical stores. In this ultra-competitive environment, some retailers may attempt to sell stale-dated inventory, especially for goods that don’t include an easy-to-read mfr. date for the consumer. We once unknowingly bought stale-dated Dr. B’s toothpaste from a former Bed Bath & Beyond physical store shortly before they declared bankruptcy. We didn’t discover that the tube of Dr. B’s toothpaste we'd purchased had been on the shelf for such a long time until it was too late to return it. And stale-dated product can be an even bigger concern when buying from online retailers & resellers. At any given time, there are struggling retailers/resellers who don’t have the financial capital to replace aging inventory. Then, there are liquidators who acquire unsold merchandise at bargain prices from various sources, including failing retailers, only to then turn around & sell that product through other retailers, including some surprisingly big-name retailers who serve as recognizable online storefronts. In conclusion, Dr. Bronner’s should just imprint a simple, easy-to-read, std. Gregorian calendar date on both their toothpaste boxes & toothpaste tubes. Instead of their ‘4248’ Julian date code, they should list it simply as ‘4Sep24’ (military style) or even ‘9.4.24’. It’s also worth noting that Dr. B’s date of mfr. imprint, whether Julian or Gregorian, is difficult to even find, much less read, on their busily printed boxes. The imprint is often so faint on the end of the box that the consumer is forced to inspect the box end at different angles to try & get the ambient light to reveal the date code embedded beneath all the busy text that practically obscures it. The date imprint should be moved & perhaps positioned vertically in 1 of the few remaining blank spaces on the box’s end, on either side of the UPC. And the date code should be printed in white on all 4 toothpaste flavors so that it contrasts well against the 4 different solid color backgrounds of the 4 different flavors (red for cinnamon, blue for peppermint, green for spearmint, & black for anise). In the end, nobody wants to put old toothpaste in his mouth. Health-conscious consumers, the kind who willingly pay more for Dr. B’s toothpaste, know that healthier organic ingredients can often be highly perishable as they typically include far fewer, if any, toxic preservatives, thickeners, or stabilizers. And even though Dr. B’s doesn’t list a formal “best by” date, most health-conscious consumers know that it’s better to use products w/organic ingredients, including essential oils & menthol crystals, etc., sooner rather than later, if nothing else for better flavor & consistency. In summary, difficult-to-find & difficult-to-read Julian calendar dates hinder more than help the busy consumer’s intelligence gathering process as he attempts to make quick but informed decisions about maintaining good oral health. It’s not complicated. Just provide the customer the info he needs in a clear & transparent way, & he’ll thank you w/increased sales. To be sure, we believe that Dr. Bronner’s attempts to be a very transparent company. Unfortunately, using an imprint in uncolored font w/a form of a Julian calendar date affixed between & beneath busy text is anything but transparent for most consumers, especially when there’s such an abundance of other non-product info printed so clearly & boldly all over that same box. If there’s room for all that, then surely there’s room for a simple, clear, contrasting, readable date stamp in white ink on a colored background that’s at least as legible as all the other printed info on the box. And if Dr. B’s is worried that consumers might be hesitant to buy a box of toothpaste off the shelf that was made, say 6-to-18 months ago, then why not include a relevant product blurb somewhere near the new date stamp on that busy box, or even on a printed insert inside the box, that explains why you're confident that, as long as the toothpaste is used w/in 3 yrs. of the date of mfr., the date shouldn’t be a concern for your customers? Except for the needed change in the format & visibility of the mfr. date & possibly tweaking the formulary to make it slightly moister, we want to reemphasize how much we like this organic fluoride-free toothpaste. It has the best & cleanest ingredients we’ve found in all the toothpastes we’ve tried; it thoroughly cleans our teeth, gums, & tongue which, when combined w/flossing after each meal, helps us maintain optimal oral health; it leaves us w/fresh breath; & all 4 flavors taste great! We’ve been using Dr. Bronner’s for the last 10 yrs. & we think we’ll be using it for the next 10. We highly recommend it. Read more
