In vitro antimicrobial efficacy of some commercial dentifrices available in market

In the present study antimicrobial activity of commercial available dentifrices six chemical synthetic such as Colgate Strong Teeth, Pepsodent, Close up, Colgate gel, Cibaca and Anchor, three herbal such as Babool, Dabur red, Meswak, and seven mouth rinse formulation namely Listerine, Hexidine, Triguard, Senquel, Wokadine, Tantum, Betadine and Sflo were tested against some microorganism such as Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus mutans, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Candida albicans using a disk diffusion method and Chlorhexdin was used as standard. In synthetic tooth paste Colgate, Pepsodent, Anchor and Cibaca shows potent antibacterial activity. The antibacterial activity among the herbal dentifrices namely Meswak was found the maximum antibacterial activity i.e. 42 mm zone of inhibition at 70% concentration against Staphylococcus aureus than other two herbal products i.e. Babool and Dabur red. While Mouth washes Hexidine shows larger zone of inhibition i.e. 15 mm against Streptococcus mutans. It was concluded that the synthetic tooth pastes commonly used contain chemical agents, which are known to produce harmful side effects on prolong use. This study suggest that use of herbal tooth pastes which contain extract of medicinal plants and possess a good antimicrobial activity .