A mouth guard is a piece of oral protective equipment, frequently used by athletes that participate in sports such as boxing, football, hockey or other sports where injury to the mouth and teeth may occur. People who grind their teeth while asleep may also wear a mouth guard.

A whiter, brighter smile can make you feel more confident and may enhance your image when meeting people for the first time.

Many terms used interchangeably do not necessarily mean the same thing. Such is the case with mouth splints and mouth guards.

Crest Whitestrips is a type of tooth whitening product. A strip of flexible material is coated on one side with a peroxide-based gel that bleaches dark stains on your teeth.

Natural toothpastes and Arm & Hammer toothpastes differ in their ingredients, but both will clean your teeth. Arm & Hammer products contain the sweeteners saccharin or sorbitol, as well as foaming agents that can cause mouth sores. Many natural toothpastes do not contain these ingredients.

Unlike traditional toothbrushes that end up in the trash after several months of use, electric toothbrushes only require you to discard the toothbrush heads.

Although dentures resemble real teeth and are equally prone to staining, they require special care and cleaning methods. Yellow and brown stains on dentures from smoking are difficult to remove with routine brushing.

Colgate introduced jars of toothpaste in 1873 and by 1896 packaged it in squeezable tubes. Toothpaste ingredients changed as science advanced. Currently, Colgate manufactures 16 types of toothpaste, each containing its own specific ingredient list.

Most consumers purchase toothpaste and other personal hygiene products without even bothering to read the list of ingredients, blindly trusting manufacturers to have the customer’s best interests at heart. It can be a costly mistake.

Toothpaste has come a long way over the years, and today you can find toothpaste that will do much more than just fight cavities. The varieties of toothpaste are many, as are the brand names of toothpaste. There are brands that are natural, and there are brands that are not.

The ingredients in your toothpaste are as important as the ingredients in your food, but -- like many cosmetic products -- toothpastes contain chemicals that would never appear on your dinner table.

Colgate Total Toothpaste is sold as a teeth cleaning product from the Colgate Palmolive Company. Other than water and flavoring, the product has 13 different ingredients that make up the formula. Toothpaste is not meant to be swallowed, and should be rinsed after using.