Nature is full of delicious flavors, from peppermint and cinnamon, to lemon and strawberry. But when you spot natural flavors on an ingredient label you may wonder what it’s doing there, especially when it comes to something you use everyday, like toothpaste. Natural flavors tend to raise eyebrows and concerns in the health world, but there’s a reason why they’re so popular. Flavors can be both tasty and safe when they’re made and used the right way.
One of the questions we get the most often about our ingredients is why they include natural flavors. The health and wellness industry has always treated natural flavors with some suspicion, and seeing those words on a label can cause some customers to hesitate. We understand and that’s why we wanted to clear the air and share the low down on our natural flavors. Here’s what they really are, why we use them, and why we stand behind them.
Natural Flavors vs. Single Raw Ingredients
First, let’s look at Wellnesse’s strawberry toothpaste. You might think the best way to get strawberry flavor is from a strawberry, but it’s not quite that simple. Using a single raw ingredient, like a strawberry, can destabilize the formula and introduce bacterial growth. Nobody wants to brush their teeth with something growing harmful microbes and bacteria in it!
That raw strawberry would have to be heat treated first, which would also change it’s flavor. It’s not surprising that heat-treated strawberry doesn’t always taste the best or have that sweet, light strawberry flavor we love. Raw ingredients also don’t retain their flavor integrity very well once combined with other ingredients. Have you ever put an ingredient into a meal or smoothie only to realize you couldn’t even taste it? Or it didn’t taste like you thought it would? The same thing can happen with oral care products.
The Benefits of Using Natural Flavors
One benefit of using natural flavors is that it provides a sharper, longer-lasting flavor. We often choose products based on their taste. And who wouldn’t want to have delicious tasting oral care products?
Another benefit to using natural flavors is that they stay stable throughout product processing and the product’s shelf life. If you think about manufacturing, shipping, and storing a product, it can go through many different temperatures and environments where it needs to stay stable.
Unfortunately, raw materials can render a formula’s performance unpredictable under these conditions. Natural flavors help provide stability and consistency so you know you’ll get the same taste and performance each time.
What Are Natural Flavors?
To put it simply, natural flavors have to be natural. According to the FDA, this means that the ingredients are derived from natural sources like plants or animals, not anything synthetic. If you’ve ever made homemade vanilla extract and put vanilla beans in alcohol, you just made a natural flavor. Another example would be essential oils made from distilled plant materials.
Brands work closely with professional flavorists to create a clear vision of what they want the product to taste like. These flavor professionals have at least 7 years of training and experience before they can be considered an expert in the flavor field.
It starts by identifying flavor profiles based on what type of flavor is needed. This is why five different strawberry flavored products can all taste completely different. Some fruity flavors are light and tangy, while others are sweet and creamy. All of those tiny details are tweaked and perfected through complex, often one-of-a-kind combinations.
Next, these natural flavors are tested to ensure they’ll hold up during processing and how they’ll taste in the finished product. Oddly enough, if we want a product that tastes like fresh strawberries, sometimes the best way to create that vibrant flavor is by adding other ingredients, like coconut or orange to the mix. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but it really works!
As we created our oral care products, we found over and over again that the best tasting and performing ingredients came from a combination of flavors and ingredients. Just like a beautiful song, the perfect flavor isn’t always best created by a single ingredient. Sometimes you need a whole orchestra! When you see natural flavors on a label, they’re often many flavoring compounds that together make a specific taste.
How Are Natural Flavors Made?
First of all, they have to come from a natural source, like cinnamon bark or lemon peels. They’re then processed to extract the flavors. One way is through steam distillation (like with essential oils). Other techniques include cold pressing, which is crushing the plant (like olive oil), or infusion (like making tea).
The result is a highly concentrated liquid with a combination of different elements from natural sources.
Why Isn’t the Ingredient Breakdown Available?
The short answer is because the exact flavor breakdown isn’t ours to disclose.
When a company partners with a flavor house to create a product formula, the flavor house typically owns the rights to the ingredients list. This is so other companies can’t easily copy the flavor to use in their own products, keeping the original product unique.
Companies only get the right to use the flavor once the formula is complete. However, the flavor house retains the exclusive rights to the formula and the exact details of how it's made. That said, we’ve taken steps to ensure each food, herb, and ingredient in our flavor combinations meet our rigorous standards and are exactly what they say they are - natural.
At Wellnesse, every ingredient in our products has been thoughtfully and carefully selected to ensure the highest quality and purity. They don’t contain any artificial colors, dyes, GMOs, or anything you wouldn’t find in nature. The result is delicious tasting and good for you products!
Shop Wellnesse products with confidence that every ingredient is safe and natural.