A TikTok user identified as Mariah, who posts under the handle @scoochthatcooch, urged women in a video to check their toothpaste for an ingredient called xylitol. She said in the video’s on-screen text that “companies love to neglect women and design their products on men.”
Mariah, who appears to be filming inside a retail store in the video, did not speak during the clip. Instead, text overlays carried her message, including the line, “ladies, please buy toothpaste with extra xylitol.”
In the caption of the video, Mariah wrote, “women’s saliva is 5-6 times more acidic than men,” and tagged the post with #feminism, #fyp, #trending, and #viral.
Commenters share personal experiences with xylitol-based toothpaste
The video’s comment section shows a range of reactions. One user wrote, “I love this toothpaste so much,” alongside a screenshot of a Himalaya-brand xylitol toothpaste product page.
Another commenter asked, “wait can you explain why? google is being annoying.” A user replied that they believe Sensodyne “works well” but said they had not personally tried a xylitol-based toothpaste.
Several other commenters asked for brand recommendations. A user asked, “What brand are y’all using???” while a commenter named Milo said their mother buys Colgate and asked for suggestions. A user also asked for “affordable brand suggestions.”
One commenter wrote that a specific toothpaste brand worked well for them, stating, “Crest would always leave me teeth painful, tried this and it stopped.” Another user warned in the comments, “be careful with xylitol if you have cats or dogs.”
Some commenters also raised questions related to broader dental discomfort. One user asked others in the thread whether they experience a sore throat after brushing with certain toothpaste brands, a complaint that echoes other people’s dental emergency scares. A user named Evan asked whether anyone had “extra xylitol toothpastes WITHOUT a flavor,” saying they struggle with flavored toothpaste. A user wrote that “Xylitol hurts my stomach,” without elaborating further.
However, a 2019 study published in the journal Dentistry and Medical Research examined salivary flow rate, pH, and viscosity among 25 working men and 25 working women between the ages of 20 and 40. The study found that the average saliva pH among men was 7.1, compared with 6.7 among women, a difference the researchers described as not statistically significant.
The same study found that under conditions of stress, the average pH dropped to 6.5 for men and 6.4 for women. The study’s authors also measured salivary flow rate and viscosity. They reported that the average flow rate was 0.36 milliliters per minute in men and 0.25 milliliters per minute in women, and that viscosity averaged 1.05 centipoise in men compared with 1.29 centipoise in women.
Researchers wrote that stress appeared to have a more significant effect on salivary flow rate in women than in men. They noted a statistically significant relationship between stress and flow rate, pH, and viscosity among the women in the study, and a statistically significant relationship between stress, pH, and viscosity among the men.
The study’s authors concluded that job-related stress appears to influence salivary gland function in both sexes, which they said may affect the quantity and quality of saliva relevant to oral health. The study did not address toothpaste ingredients, xylitol, or the specific 5-6 times pH difference figure cited in Mariah’s TikTok caption.
The pH difference reported in the study, 7.1 for men compared with 6.7 for women, amounts to a gap of 0.4 on the pH scale. Because pH is measured on a logarithmic scale, a difference of that size does not correspond to saliva that is five to six times more acidic the TikToker claimed. The study’s authors also described the baseline difference between men and women as not statistically significant.
Xylitol is an ingredient used in some toothpaste and dental products, including at least one product shown in a screenshot posted by a commenter under Mariah’s video. Dental anxiety itself has also become a recurring subject on social media, including a widely shared video of a child avoiding a root canal.
Published: Jul 2, 2026 08:04 am