Best Whitening Toothpaste

How does whitening toothpaste whiten?

The three pages describe two routes. Arm & Hammer’s names a peroxide. Its disclosure form lists sodium carbonate peroxide as the “peroxide/whitening source,” and the product page says the paste “contains peroxide for extra whitening power that does not damage enamel.” Tom’s of Maine and Hello describe stain removal. Tom’s says Whole Care “whitens teeth by removing surface stains.” Hello’s page lists peroxide among the things its paste is made without and describes “naturally derived vitamin c, an alternative to peroxide for teeth whitening.”

The ADA draws the same line in its own reference guide. Its 2025 guide to products carrying the ADA Seal splits whitening into two groups, stain removal and bleaching. Every toothpaste in it sits under stain removal, and the bleaching group holds whitening strips. What the ADA Seal on Toothpaste Actually Means explains how the seal is tied to one named claim.

Why every pick here has fluoride

Whitening is a cosmetic claim, and a tube is also something you brush with twice a day. Each of these three is sold as an anticavity toothpaste too. Arm & Hammer’s form lists sodium fluoride as the active, Tom’s lists sodium monofluorophosphate first with the purpose “anticavity,” and Hello’s Drug Facts line gives sodium fluoride at 0.24 percent. Two fluoride-free whitening pastes have Runlow records as well, Tom’s Antiplaque & Whitening and Hello’s Superfresh, and both state the same surface-stain mechanism. A reader who wants no fluoride has those; this guide keeps to pastes that do both jobs.

Our pick: Arm & Hammer Advance White Extreme Whitening Toothpaste

This is the one paste here with a whitening ingredient named as such. The parent company’s disclosure form lists sodium carbonate peroxide as the “peroxide/whitening source,” sodium bicarbonate as the abrasive, and tetrasodium pyrophosphate for tartar control. It gives a function for all twelve ingredients. The product page calls the baking soda “100% ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda” and sells the paste as a “fluoride toothpaste that helps protect against cavities and control tartar.”

One caveat. The formula lists sodium lauryl sulfate among its two surfactants, and neither other pick does. The page also says the peroxide “does not damage enamel,” which is the brand’s claim, with no test published beside it.

Runner-up: Tom’s of Maine Whole Care Toothpaste with Fluoride

This is the best-disclosed paste of the three. Tom’s ingredient table gives each of its twelve ingredients a purpose and a source, so the whitening route is readable straight off it. Calcium carbonate is the “mild abrasive” and hydrated silica is for “cleaning / polishing,” which fits the page’s own claim that the paste “whitens teeth by removing surface stains.” Zinc citrate is there to “freshen breath.” The page says the paste contains no titanium dioxide, artificial flavors or sweeteners, and its table lists no sodium lauryl sulfate. The brand claims B Corp certification.

It sits second because its page makes the narrower whitening claim. It names no whitening ingredient beyond the cleaning agents, and it puts no figure on the result. For a reader who wants a whitening paste without sodium lauryl sulfate, it is the first choice here.

Also consider: Hello Vitamin C Whitening Toothpaste with Fluoride

Hello makes the most specific claim of the three. Its page says the paste “can give you 2 shades whiter teeth” in six weeks of twice-daily brushing and “removes 94% of surface stains” in three weeks, both footnoted and neither with a published test. The vitamin C is sodium ascorbyl phosphate, which the page calls “an alternative to peroxide for teeth whitening.” The page lists what the paste leaves out, peroxide, SLS, parabens, dyes and titanium dioxide among them, and states its fluoride dose on a Drug Facts line.

It sits third because the page names the active and stops. It lists fifteen inactive ingredients in order and gives no function for any of them, so the vitamin C’s role comes from the marketing copy rather than an ingredient table.

What the pages leave out

None of the three publishes the data behind its whitening claim. That covers Arm & Hammer’s enamel statement, Tom’s surface-stain claim and Hello’s shade and percentage figures alike. None of the three appears in the ADA’s 2025 reference guide under whitening stain removal, where the ADA lists the toothpastes whose whitening claim it has reviewed. The two lines it does list are Colgate Total SF and Tom’s of Maine Simply White, and Runlow holds no record for either yet. No page here says who should not use a whitening paste, and this guide adds no such verdict.

How we researched this

Every product fact in this guide comes from each brand’s own website, and for Arm & Hammer the parent company’s ingredient disclosure form the product page links, read on the date each record shows. Nothing was retrieved from a retailer listing or a review. Ingredient functions are quoted from the brand’s own tables and forms. Each certification is recorded as a manufacturer claim, since the issuer’s directory could not be queried by exact product with the tools available. The ADA statements come from the ADA’s 2025 reference guide to products carrying its seal. Runlow has not tested any of these toothpastes and makes no claim about how white any of them gets anyone’s teeth. No prices are shown.