Open your tube of toothpaste to advance science!
Tooth brushing is a ritual that we repeat daily. Every day, and several times a day, we use our toothpaste or our mouthwash to ensure our oral hygiene. But their ingredient lists are often long and complex. Some reveal the presence of additives, such as sweeteners or titanium dioxide, whose long-term effects are still unknown.
Scientists are now interested in exposure to additives through food but also through toothpaste when brushing teeth. For this, it is necessary that we add all toothpastes and mouthwashes to the Open Beauty Facts database, in order to have a precise idea of the compositions of these products on the market.
The EREN researchers (the creators of the Nutri-Score with whom Open Food Facts has been collaborating for many years) will cross-reference the data we have collected thanks to you with those of the NutriNet-Santé cohort. This will provide insight into the long-term effects of oral hygiene products.
This will also allow everyone to choose their toothpaste or mouthwash in a more informed way.
Long live participatory science!
Open Food Facts loves science, and even more so when everyone can participate! Operation Toothpaste is one of the actions carried out as part of the project Use of the Open Food Facts citizen database within the Nutrinet Santé cohort, winner of the call for Participatory Sciences projects of the University of Paris which aims to involve citizens in the collection of data, in their interpretation, and/or in the co-production of the research project.
You can participate in 2 ways:
Take a picture of your toothpaste
Install the Open Beauty Facts app to scan and add photos of your tube of toothpaste and/or mouthwash.
Time needed: 3 minutes, like brushing your teeth!
Complete the information in the product sheets
Create an account on the Open Beauty Facts website (if you already have an Open Food Facts, it’s the same) to complete the toothpaste product sheets thanks to the photos received.
- Select a toothpaste whose ingredients have not yet been extracted.
- Click on “Edit product” at the top right
- Select and/or crop the photo containing the ingredients
- Click the “Extract Ingredients” button
- Check that the extraction is correct, and possibly correct the list
- Save your changes
Time needed: at will! (2 to 3 minutes per product)
Thank you in advance to everyone for your participation! We’re counting on you!
A call to toothpaste and cosmetic manufacturers
You can also participate in the operation and transparency of product information by sending us photos and information of your products, using the Open Food Facts producer platform (which also works for cosmetics). The platform makes it easy to send photos and data with an Excel table of any format, or automatically via Equadis.
For instance, Unilever already transmits automatically and in real time the information of all its food products but also cosmetics on Open Food Facts and Open Beauty Facts.
