Most of the times, I have seen buyers asking for Colgate or Pepsodent and not toothpaste! That is the level of toxic influence Ad industry create to brainwash native minds!
Isn’t it mental slavery that we reject grand-father’s legacy habits and pay hefty to companies for the same stuff? 
😀
We had a lesson in our mid-high-school science: “Adsorption and colloids”. Carbon-containing stuff is a good adsorbent. We have to use some roughage to remove oily stains from utensils too, we don’t use soft stuff there.
Use of ashes is natural. All ashes are essentially oxides, some are nitrites. On contact with water, some strongly metallic elements’ oxides readily turn into hydroxides. Eg. Cao + H20 = Ca(OH)2. These too must be acting on enamel. And what is a good source of ashes? Cow dung, burnt. Small fibre easily burnt. It is also full of nitrates which helps to stabilize NO. NO is important for maintaining blood pressure and neural food pathway.
And the Zebu Hindu cow must be the best ruminant in the world whose ruminal microflora produce fragrant stuff; so those must be alkoxides which too must be playing a role.
I started using Gau gobar ash for teeth cleaning 4 or 5 years back. Since then, being mocked/made fun of in online and offline social circles. 
🙂
This message for them. What is available freely, is now sold in name of technology. i.e. Charcoal. 🙂 
(Y)
I received this in whatsapp. So true. We are sold things used by grand parents generation free of cost, with fancy tech jargon and packaging.
“In 1917 Colgate came to India and said “why do you guys still use salt and charcoal to clean ur teeth, use our paste!!”. Now in 2015, Colgate is advertising asking “does ur toothpaste have salt in it?” And goes on to say “our brush is coated with charcoal which is GooD for white teeth”. It took them 95+years to know that. But we Indians will never realise our GooD old values”
Photo in the left is what we use at home.
