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Toothpaste Manufacturing Equipment

Find innovative production technology for making toothpaste and connect directly with world-leading specialists.

a tube of toothpaste with the paste coming out and the lid unscrewed off.

It’s been estimated that we spend an average of 3,000 hours brushing our teeth. In fact, in our daily routine, toothpaste is something we use at least twice a day. Making toothpaste is a very straightforward process; just mix together water, abrasives, humectants, thickening and foaming agents, sweeteners, and flavors in the right amounts until you get a paste. Once you have added the colors, you can fill a tube with your colorful toothpaste and seal it before being shipped to stores.

Stories about Toothpaste

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So what goes into a tube of toothpaste?

Try reading the label on your toothpaste. What you’ll get is a very long list of ingredients and complicated names like trisodium citrate dihydrate or xantham gum. Some toothpaste even include preservatives such as methylparaben and Sodium benzoate. To keep it simple, let’s break these ingredients down into different categories; first, abrasives.

They are the building block of your toothpaste (30-60% of your final product). Abrasives are essential if you want to scrape food or plaque off your teeth, to prevent cavities or dental disease.

Abrasives, binding agents and humectants in toothpaste production

Thickening and binding agents give the product the right viscosity and keep the shape of the toothpaste when you push it out of the tube. Without them, you’ll have a watery, runny mixture. The third category is humectants, which help retain water and prevent the product from drying out. In addition, humectants are sweet, but not as sweet as sugar. For this reason, some manufacturers may decide to add sweeteners such as saccharine. Other ingredients include flavors, foaming agents, fluoride, and water.

Toothpaste making equipment – what do you need in your production line?


Once the chemical ingredients arrive at the plant, they are ready to be measured and weighed by a check weigher or any weighing equipment. Once you get the correct amounts, you can move on to the mixing step. You first mix the water, humectant (usually glycerin or sorbitol), and hydrophilic colloids (binders). The hydrophilic colloids swell in the presence of the water and are critical in preventing the separation of the solid and liquid phases. That is why a mixer is a crucial step in toothpaste production but also in emulsions, ointments, lotions as well as shampoo.


Now it’s time to add all the rest of the ingredients and mix everything together using a vacuum homogenizer mixer. Homogenization reduces the particles of ingredients by distributing them evenly in the liquid medium. Now it’s up to the imagination of the producers. Different coloring and flavoring agents can be added to the white paste – blue or green, mint or peach, you name it. If you want to stick to the white variety, it is the titanium dioxide that gives toothpaste its white color.


Everyone loves stripes – How to fill them in your toothpaste tube?

It’s been a while since Leonard Maraffino invented the first striped toothpaste; but since then, its popularity has only grown. Getting the stripes, as complicated as it may seem at first glance, is a very simple thing. After mixing, the toothpaste is sent to the filling station. One end is capped while the opposite end is left open for filling. The filling pump consists of three or four nozzles that inject a different color into the tube at the same time. Once the tube is filled, the machine crimps the end; so now you can pack the tubes in boxes and ship them.

Is there any difference between adult toothpaste and children’s toothpaste?

The answer is yes. Besides the thousands of colors, fruit flavors – kids aren’t super fans of mint – and fun packaging, the key difference between the two kinds of toothpaste is the amount of fluoride. Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that prevents tooth decay and helps tooth enamel to be stronger. However, if it is swallowed in large amounts, fluoride can become harmful. During teeth-forming age (8 or younger) children are also more likely to develop dental fluorosis. This is the appearance of white spots on the surface of the teeth, caused by fluoride exposure.

Toothpaste making process

Toothpaste filling process

Toothpaste making process

Processing toothpaste into tablet form

Around a tenth of a toothpaste tube is water in the liquid phase. Concerns about water use and transportation costs are spurring innovative products in the form of tablets. The formula typically includes anti-bacterial sweeteners like xylitol and an abrasive like precipitated calcium carbonate. Mix the base ingredients ratios of the formula. Bind the powder particles with a wet or dry agglomeration system to facilitate the processing of the toothpaste tablet. Agglomerates prevent sticking when the formula is sent for compaction and punched through the dyes.

Processing steps involved in toothpaste making

Which toothpaste technology do you need?

Cost-effective homogenizing and emulsifying system

Cost-effective homogenizing and emulsifying system

Manufacturers of cosmetic products need mixing equipment that is capabl…

Inline batch mixer for solids and liquids

Inline batch mixer for solids and liquids

Several issues often arise when your process requires batch-wise mixing of powder…

Dual shaft mixer for high viscosity products

Dual shaft mixer for high viscosity products

In industries such as adhesives, sealants, and cosmetics, mixing medium to hig…

Horizontal flat pouching line for liquid soaps

Horizontal flat pouching line for liquid soaps

Manufacturers of liquid soaps often face the challenge of efficiently packag…

Vacuum processing units for high-viscosity products

Vacuum processing units for high-viscosity products

Producing high-quality lotions, creams, and gels requires specialized …

Colloidal mill for fine grinding and homogenisation

Colloidal mill for fine grinding and homogenisation

In the production of liquid and semi-solid products, achieving fine pa…

Automatic tube filling and closing system

Automatic tube filling and closing system

In the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries, achieving precise and effic…

Manual metal tube sealing equipment

Manual metal tube sealing equipment

For small-batch productions where you utilize metal tubes as containers for your product…

Flexible R&D wet agitator mill for cosmetics

Flexible R&D wet agitator mill for cosmetics

Using nanoparticles in cosmetics requires precise control over material breakd…

Pilot plant homogeniser

Pilot plant homogeniser

From food to pharma, homogenization is an essential step in the production process that provides unifo…

Manual plastic tube sealing equipment

Manual plastic tube sealing equipment

Working in labs or with small batch production lines where you have to seal plastic or…

Continuous mixer for toothpaste production

Continuous mixer for toothpaste production

When manufacturing toothpaste, dispersing and mixing powders into liquids to cre…

Pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry products cartoner

Pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry products cartoner

A large number of cosmetic and pharmaceutical products are packed i…

Tube unloader and feeder

Tube unloader and feeder

The pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries utilise high speed tube fillers on large-scale production …

Tube feeding unit for high volume and high speed tube filler

Tube feeding unit for high volume and high speed tube filler

High performance tube-filling machines are used for large sc…

Tube feeder for a small scale production tube filler

Tube feeder for a small scale production tube filler

Low speed tube-filling machines are used for small scale production l…

Loading cassette for a tube filler

Loading cassette for a tube filler

High performance tube-filling machines are used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic indust…

High speed automatic tube filler

High speed automatic tube filler

For high-volume lines filling pharmaceutical, cosmetic or food products into tube containers…

Medium and high speed range automatic tube filler

Medium and high speed range automatic tube filler

When scaling up production of pharmaceutical, food or cosmetic products …

Medium speed tube filler and sealer

Medium speed tube filler and sealer

For scale-up filling of tube packaging for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food products,…

Low speed tube filler

Low speed tube filler

Increasing numbers of products in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries are delivered in flex…

A two-component filling application tube filler

A two-component filling application tube filler

A wide variety of pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food products require tube-s…

Single head capper

Single head capper

For the stand-alone capping of bottles of up to 30 litre capacity for smaller-scale production you need a r…

Servo controlled filler

Servo controlled filler

For food and non-food liquid products that are high foam or have a high viscosity a specialist filling…

Flowmeter filler

Flowmeter filler

For larger production runs of food, non-food and cosmetics industries, where accuracy and volume of filling is…

Compact monoblock filler

Compact monoblock filler

Filling and capping bottles and pots for food, chemical and cosmetics industries using separate machi…

Batch dispersing machine for bottom entry into vessels

Batch dispersing machine for bottom entry into vessels

When your process requires high performance mixing or dispersion bu…

Batch dispersing machine for abrasive products

Batch dispersing machine for abrasive products

For mixing and dispersing tasks that cannot be completed by conventional sti…

Batch dispersing machine

Batch dispersing machine

Equipment operating under the rotor/stator principal is often employed when more traditional methods …

Continuous kneader

Continuous kneader

Effective mixing of highly viscous products with extremely high solids content can be difficult and the res…

Vertical kneader

Vertical kneader

Production of highly viscous products with high solid content often benefits from kneading processes rather th…

Horizontal kneader

Horizontal kneader

For high viscosity products, better results and reduced process times can be achieved with kneading type ra…

High accuracy homogenizing system

High accuracy homogenizing system

When extremely high accuracy is required in your recipe or formulation traditional mixing …

Continuous homogenizing system

Continuous homogenizing system

Certain mixing tasks present unique challenges and manufacturers need equipment that is specif…

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