Beyond Fluoride: A Guide to Every At-Home Oral Care Product

Patients ask about oral care products every single day, and many dental and hygiene professionals received almost no formal training on them. Meanwhile, more than 1,500 oral care brands compete for shelf space, and dental disease remains the most prevalent disease on earth.

In this session, Dr. Kami Hoss closes the gap by walking you through the science behind the most-asked-about ingredients, including fluoride, hydroxyapatite (micro and nano), antibacterial agents, prebiotics, and abrasives, and explaining why single-ingredient thinking, ignoring pH, and one-size-fits-all formulation keep undermining clinical outcomes.

He also takes on the most loaded word on the shelf: natural. Does it reliably signal a safer product, or is it more of an unregulated marketing term than meaningful information?

Join us to find out, and leave with a framework for evaluating any product on the market, a method for personalizing recommendations by age, stage, and risk, and a 30-second label test you can use chairside.

Explain why the number of available oral care products has risen sharply while caries and periodontal disease prevalence has not declined.

Evaluate the evidence behind common product claims, including fluoride, hydroxyapatite concentration and source, antibacterial versus prebiotic approaches, and whitening agents.

Assess whether natural and clean product claims correspond to greater safety, and explain the regulatory status of those terms.

Identify formulation factors affecting safety and efficacy, including pH, relative dentin abrasivity, surfactants, and preservative systems.

Apply a chairside framework for personalizing product recommendations by age, stage, and risk factors.

Demonstrate a thirty-second method for assessing any oral care product from its label.