Tasty Toothpastes

Unusual toothpaste flavors, beyond traditional minty varieties, have proliferated since the mid-2010s, with smaller specialty players driving the trend. Hello Products offers blue raspberry, bubble gum, fresh citrus, lavender vanilla, and more, for example, while Tom’s of Maine sells cucumber aloe, coconut and mango, cinnamon clove, and fennel, to name a few. Whiskey, bacon, wasabi, and coffee are among the other flavors that have made their way into the category from time to time around the world. Even some of the industry giants have occasionally gotten into the trend; Colgate has a watermelon-flavored paste, while Crest once had a line of limited-edition flavors such as mint chocolate and lime spearmint. 

Expanding the range of flavors can satisfy a variety of goals, including to entice more people, especially children, to brush; appeal to niche customer groups, such as those of different cultures or geographic regions; generate publicity and virality; and/or capitalize on the natural cleaning properties of certain ingredients.

On the licensing front, food and flavor brands are increasingly making their way into this space, mostly (but not all) for short-term initiatives. Here are some of the companies that have produced licensed and collaborative offerings around the world: 

• Hismile is the leader in pairing toothpaste with food and other flavor-based IPs. In 2025, the Australian-headquartered company’s notable releases with food brands have included KFC and Lucky Charms toothpastes, announced in April and July, respectively; it has also paired with a variety of candy brands, including Chupa Chups, Nerds, and Wonka Chocolate. Its non-licensed range includes flavors such as blue raspberry, pink lemonade, cotton candy, gummy worm, salted caramel pretzel, and more. 

• In March of this year, Moon Oral Beauty partnered with the Sprinkles bakery chain for a promotion to mark Sprinkles’ 20th and Moon’s sixth anniversaries. The initiative included a birthday-cake flavored toothpaste and an electric toothbrush with a cupcake-sprinkles pattern on the handle, both available at retailers including Ulta, Nordstrom, and Amazon for a limited time. A custom Moon-branded cupcake was also sold in Sprinkles’ 25 bakeries, where shoppers received a trial-size sample of the toothpaste with any purchase. 

• Mindful oral-care company Boka, which offers varieties such as watermelon mint and orange cream, partnered with Grillo’s Pickles for a limited-edition cucumber-dill flavored toothpaste. The product, which some reviewers described as having a light briny-tangy-sweet taste, was sold through the Boka website in a National Pickle Day promotion in November 2024. 

• Marvis collaborates with Amarelli Licorice on a toothpaste available in full, travel, and trial sizes. The offering, which combines the flavor of the beloved licorice that Amarelli has been producing since 1731 with mint, sits alongside ginger, cinnamon, jasmine, and others as a permanent flavor in Marvis’ line. Marvis is a brand of the Ludovico Martelli company; both Marvis and Amarelli are based in Italy.  

• Aekyung Industrial’s 2080 toothpaste, based in South Korea, paired with two food brands in the early 2020s. With Ottogi, an instant curry brand, it released a yellow-hued toothpaste containing turmeric extract that gave the mint base a subtle curry scent and lent anti-inflammatory properties to the product. Separately, with Samyang Foods and its Buldak Ramen brand, it produced a spicy chicken noodle-flavored Hochi toothpaste, named for Buldak’s cartoon mascot. While the products were initially popular, they ran into trouble with regulators who felt consumers would confuse them with actual food and were taken off the market after a run of a couple of years. 

• Japan’s Lion brand offered limited-edition flavored toothpastes annually for close to a decade, starting back in 2012, in partnership with Akagi Nyugyo and its Gari-Gari-kun ice-pop brand. The annual releases included toothpaste in flavors such as cola and “soda,” as well as complementary items such as cola-flavored dental floss.  

Some licensed toothpastes tied to character/entertainment properties also feature unusual flavors. Hismile has released toothpastes that bring fictional flavors to life, including Simpsons-licensed Purple Squishee and Smurfs-licensed Smurfberry, both released this year, as well as a coconut cake-flavored Lilo & Stitch offering that is not tied to a specific in-world product but reflects the Hawaiian culture and foods depicted in the films. Hismile also launched a Miffy toothpaste in sweet apple flavor. Meanwhile, Moon Oral Beauty’s collaboration with Hello Kitty, announced last month, centered on peppermint and hot chocolate-flavored toothpaste and whitening kits.