Oral Care Is Part of the Beauty Routine
Oral care is starting to borrow heavily from the beauty playbook. Toothpaste is taking cues from fragrance through unexpected flavors and sensory experiences, mouthwash brands are talking about hydration and pH balance, floss is becoming more design-led, and concepts like microbiomes, personalization, and longevity are entering a category that was historically defined more by function than experience.
The market is large enough for that evolution to matter. The global oral-care market is estimated at $42.3 billion in 2026 and projected to reach roughly $66.4 billion by 2033. More revealing to me is where consumer expectations are moving. Mintel's 2026 research points to longevity, whole-body microbiome health, integrated wellness, and beauty-led oral care as emerging areas of opportunity. More than a third of U.S. toothpaste users in Mintel's research already see oral care as part of their beauty routine.
That last statistic immediately reminded me of something from my own doctoral research. When I asked people to describe their beauty and personal-care routines, almost everyone I spoke with included oral care somewhere in the conversation. They included brushing, flossing, whitening, mouthwash, or other oral-care habits themselves. That challenged the assumption that consumers experience oral care as something completely separate from beauty. In their everyday lives, the boundaries were already much less defined.
Social media is making that overlap even more visible. Get ready with me videos and morning and nighttime routines increasingly move between skincare, haircare, supplements, oral care, and fragrance without treating them as completely different worlds. ELLE documented the rise of elaborate TikTok mouth routines that can include oil pulling, water flossing, tongue scraping, whitening, probiotics, and brushing, with some consumers explicitly describing oral care in the same preventive and self-care language they use for skincare. ELLE went as far as launching its first Lip Service Awards this year, spanning lips, teeth, tongues, gums, toothbrushes, and oral-care products.
The product landscape is responding. Brands like KÖPPEN, COCOLAB, and Bite are approaching familiar behaviors through design, sustainability, ritual, ingredients, and experience. Across the wider market, oral-care companies are experimenting with new textures, whitening technologies, microbiome positioning, sensory experiences, and products that look much more at home beside a skincare collection than hidden underneath the sink. Mintel now describes the lines between oral care, beauty, and wellness as actively blurring.
We've watched similar transformations happen elsewhere in personal care. Deodorant moved beyond odor protection into fragrance, skincare ingredients, and premium design. Body care evolved from basic moisturization into exfoliating acids, retinoids, peptides, barrier repair, and healthy-aging claims. Haircare expanded beyond shampoo and conditioner into scalp serums, diagnostics, microbiome science, and longevity. In each case, a functional category became more valuable when consumers began attaching more meaning, enjoyment, and sophistication to an existing routine.
Oral care has an advantage those categories would love to have: the behavior is already established. Brands don't need to persuade consumers to invent another step in their day. Brushing already happens morning and night for many people. The commercial opportunity is in changing what consumers expect from those moments, whether that's greater personalization, better sensory experiences, visible aesthetic benefits, stronger wellness associations, or products people actually enjoy using.
The other part of this shift is happening outside the product aisle. Dental professionals themselves are becoming part of beauty and wellness culture online. The Washington Post recently reported on dentists using TikTok and YouTube to explain oral-health risks, respond to viral misinformation, and reach younger adults who may not be visiting dental offices regularly. One study cited in the report found that one in three U.S. adults ages 18 to 35 had skipped the dentist in the previous year, while some practices reported attracting new patients through viral social content.
That creates an unusual intersection between healthcare, beauty, content, and commerce. There does need to be a line between making oral care more desirable and turning healthcare into another beauty trend. Evidence still matters. Regular brushing and flossing, preventive dental care, and professionally guided treatment can't be replaced by cute packaging or a viral routine. That tension may actually become one of the defining challenges for the brands entering this space: consumers will expect the experience of beauty while still demanding the credibility of healthcare.
My prediction is that oral care will move much closer to the beauty and wellness industry over the next several years, but it won't become skincare for your teeth. The opportunity is broader than that. Consumers are beginning to treat their mouths as part of the same personal-care ecosystem as their skin, hair, and body, and the brands that understand that behavior will build around both sides of the category: the science people need and the experience they want.
Dania Khalife
