I am allergic to some pretty weird things, one of which is toothpaste. I am often left clutching the toilet bowl fighting waves of nausea after I have cleaned my teeth which is of course extremely unpleasant. Not every type or brand of toothpaste has this effect, but it has made me very wary of trying out different brands if I am being honest.

My heart sank a little therefore, when my husband returned home one evening after picking up some shopping. One of the items we had been running out of was of course toothpaste and, ever the sucker for a 'gimmicky' product if one is on offer, my husband had chosen to ignore our regular brands of "safe" toothpaste on the supermarket shelves in favour of the "Aquafresh Fresh & Minty", which is packaged in a very impressive-looking plastic pump dispenser. Assuring me that there was a special offer price on this particular product, and he had not been swayed by the attractive packaging alone, I was rather dubious about whether this brand of toothpaste would be suitable for my own oral hygiene needs.

I had to try it to find out of course, and I decided that a little would go a long way until I knew if there would be any repercussions with the paste. For this reason, I used a very small amount of the toothpaste on my wet toothbrush the first couple of times that I tried it out, deciding to err on the side of caution as it were.

I must admit that my choosing to dispense only a small amount of the paste from the plastic pump was quite easy to do given the plastic nozzle at the top of the plastic cylinder. I have found that similar designs of 'pump' style toothpastes that I have used in the past seem to have the toothpaste 'gush' out of them, but this was not the case with the Aquafresh pump and I found it easy to stop the 'flow' of toothpaste, simply by easing the pressure on the plastic button at the pump's nozzle.

The toothpaste itself is very attractive-looking it has to be said. I think that Aquafresh is one of the few toothpastes available on today's market that has the 'trio stripe' design still intact. The design of the toothpaste has a 'layered' look to it, with the colours of red, white and blue sitting on top of each other neatly, making it seem like quite an attractive-looking product to use.... To me, anyway.

There is a faint whiff of mint as I am dispensing the toothpaste from the tube, and this is reinforced when I begin to brush. The taste is not that of a very powerful peppermint-type flavour, which can be quite refreshing of course, but quite over-powering at times too. The flavour of the Aquafresh is much more subtle in comparison, but is very pleasant and refreshing too.

The toothpaste foams quite nicely when it is added to water and brushed along my teeth, although not in a way that leaves me feeling like I am going to gag, such is the rather mild level of effervescence achieved. This is a significant problem that I have with other brands of toothpaste that I have used before, so I was pleased (and mildly surprised) that the Aquafresh didn't disappoint me in this regard.

Furthermore, I find that after I have used the Aquafresh toothpaste, my teeth feel very clean and my whole mouth feels refreshed and rather invigorated. I couldn't honestly say that I feel there is a huge improvement to this feeling from the Aquafresh when compared to other brands, but it is certainly obvious to me that the cleaning properties of this particular toothpaste are of a very high standard and I certainly have no complaints about this.

Of course, the main concern I had with this particular brand was whether it was going to leave me feeling nauseous or not and I am pleased to report that I have had absolutely no problem whatsoever. So much so, that I wouldn't hesitate to buy this brand of toothpaste again, as it is now on my 'safe' list, as it were.

There is a whole range of products available from the Aquafresh brand such as alternative flavours and types (eg, whitening) of toothpaste and toothbrushes etc, which are available from larger supermarkets such as Tesco as well as good drugstores such as Superdrug and Boots.

My husband bought the Aquafresh 'pump' bottle - which is 100ml in size - from a local branch of Sainsbury's supermarket, where it was on a special offer price of £1.00. The usual cost of this product is, I believe, nearer to £3 which seems highly overpriced and in my opinion, you are paying more here for the packaging alone. This seems to be confirmed if you consider the price for the 'normal' style of toothpaste tube, in the same quantity (100ml) and flavour as the pump I have at home is only £1.11 from Boots stores or online at www.boots.com.

For the price being so high (when not on a special promotion of course), I will be deducting one star from the rating of the product, as I do feel we are paying more for the gimmicky packaging, but otherwise I cannot really fault it and I would buy it again.. But only at the reduced price!