We Tested It: Cleaning With Baking Soda

I had to resort to Comet to fix that.

For the final test of baking soda’s cleaning powers, I attempted to use it to make toothpaste. This was a particularly scary undertaking considering this disclaimer was written under one of the recipes I looked at: "The basis of homemade toothpaste is baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Either one in huge does can be dangerous, so DO NOT INGEST!" Cool! Sounds fun!

I mixed six parts baking soda with one part hydrogen peroxide.

I then put some on my toothbrush and went for it.

It was horrifying. It was truly terrible. It tasted like I poured a salty poison over a 9-volt battery and then licked it. Actually, that’s not quite vivid enough. Let’s try again. It tasted like the melting face of a troll. I immediately spit it out and brushed my teeth with real toothpaste.

So, to review, baking soda worked really well as a deodorizer, kind of well as a bathtub cleanser, and really unpleasantly as a tooth cleaner. It’s certainly worth having around, but it’s not something I plan on using regularly in place of “real” cleaning products or toothpaste.

Noah Garfinkel writes for Networx.com.