Short answer: yes. My Green Routine's nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste tablets are solid, not a paste, gel, or liquid, so under both TSA and UK airport security rules they don't need to go in your clear plastic liquids bag at all. Count out the tablets you need, drop them in any small tin or pouch, and walk straight through security.

I get this question a lot from people about to fly for the first time since switching off fluoride toothpaste, usually messaging the night before a trip, half-packed, holding a nearly-full tube and wondering if it's about to get confiscated. It's a fair worry. Liquids rules feel like they change every few months, the signage at security is never quite clear enough, and nobody wants to be the person holding up the queue while a security officer squints at their washbag.

So here's the honest version, not the marketing version. Tablets aren't a clever loophole or a grey area you're gambling on. They're solid. A liquid restriction, by its own definition, applies to things that are liquid, gel, paste, cream, foam or aerosol, and a tablet you crunch between your teeth is none of those things until the moment it meets water in your mouth. That's the whole reason this works, and it's worth understanding properly rather than just trusting a brand's word for it, ours included.

We covered the maths on how far a jar actually goes in How Long Do Toothpaste Tablets Last?, and if you're still getting your head around what nano-hydroxyapatite even is, that's in What Is Nano-Hydroxyapatite, Really?. This one is specifically about what happens at the airport, because that's usually the moment people actually decide to switch.

Do toothpaste tablets count as a liquid at airport security?

No, and the reasoning is more concrete than it sounds. In the UK, the government's own hand luggage guidance defines liquids as covering "cosmetics and toiletries, including creams, lotions, oils... pastes, including toothpaste; gels" and similar consistency items, all things that flow or can be poured. A solid tablet doesn't meet that description, because there's nothing to pour and nothing to measure in millilitres. The same logic holds in the US: TSA's general rule of thumb, cited on travel guidance pages like Away's TSA explainer, is that anything that "doesn't hold a completely solid form at room temperature" falls under the 3-1-1 liquids rule. A toothpaste tablet does hold a completely solid form at room temperature, right up until you bite down on it.

Worth being straight about one thing: neither the UK government's liquids page nor TSA's published guidance names "toothpaste tablets" item by item, because it's a newer format than the rules were written around, and airport security staff always retain final discretion over anything they consider worth a second look, tablets included. In practice this is a well-established, uneventful non-event at security, but if a screening officer wants to glance in your tin, that's their call to make, not the rulebook's.

How many tablets should I actually pack for a trip?

One tablet is one brush, so the maths is straightforward: multiply the number of days you'll be away by two, and add a couple of spares in case a flight gets delayed or you decide to brush after a big travel-day meal. A long weekend needs around 8 to 10 tablets. A two-week trip needs 28 to 30. Drop that count into a small tin, an old mint tin works fine, or the free travel case that comes with a My Green Routine subscription, and that's your entire toiletry decision made for the whole trip.

It's part of why we sized the free travel case that comes with our nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste tablets the way we did. There's no ambiguity about "have I got enough for the trip" the way there is with a half-squeezed tube, because you can physically count what's left before you zip the case shut.

Can I put the tablets in a normal tin, or do they need special packaging?

Any dry, reasonably sealed container works, a tin, a small zip pouch, a repurposed pill case. The main thing to avoid is anything that lets moisture in before you're ready to use them, since the tablets are formulated to be shelf-stable precisely because there's no water content until you add it yourself by brushing. A jar or tin with a snug lid is all it takes. We include a free travel case with every 12-Month Subscription for exactly this reason, so you're not raiding the kitchen drawer for an old Tic Tac box the night before a flight.

How do MGR's tablets compare to other toothpaste tablet brands for travel?

If you're tablet-curious rather than MGR-loyal yet, it's worth knowing where the market actually sits on price and format, because "toothpaste tablets" isn't a single product, it's a growing category with real differences between brands.

Two honest things here. First, on pure price per day, Georganics and Denttabs are cheaper than us, and Denttabs still contains fluoride if that's what you're specifically avoiding or specifically want, worth checking their exact formulation before you buy. Second, every solid tablet on this list, ours included, solves the airport problem equally well, because the liquids rule doesn't care about ingredient percentages, only about physical form. What you're actually choosing between is formulation, not travel-friendliness, tablets are tablets at security. We think the 10% nano-hydroxyapatite concentration and the free jar-for-life packaging make the case for us, but that's a separate conversation from whether you can carry them on a plane, which every tablet on this table answers the same way: yes.

Do tablets survive a squashed suitcase and cabin pressure better than a tube?

Generally yes, if only because there's less that can go wrong. A tube can split or the cap can work loose under pressure changes, and you find out when you unzip your washbag to a minty surprise across your other toiletries. A tablet in a sealed tin has no seal to fail in the same way, nothing to leak, and nothing that changes shape if a suitcase gets thrown around. The one thing to actually watch is humidity, if a tin gets damp, tablets can soften or stick together, so a container with a proper seal matters more than the tin itself being fancy.

Is it actually cheaper to travel with tablets than buying travel-size toothpaste every trip?

Usually, yes, and this is where the maths quietly favours tablets even for people who weren't switching for the airport reason at all. A 20ml travel tube of mainstream toothpaste bought specifically for a trip typically runs somewhere in the £1 to £2 range and gets binned at the destination or thrown out by security if it's over the limit and you forgot. Do that four or five times a year and you're spending roughly the same, sometimes more, than a full year of MGR tablets on the 12-Month Subscription, without the repeated last-minute Boots run the night before a flight.

We went into the full year-round cost breakdown, including how mainstream fluoride toothpaste like Colgate compares honestly on price, in How Long Do Toothpaste Tablets Last?, worth a read if the travel angle has you thinking about switching for good rather than just for one trip.

Should I switch my other travel liquids to solids too?

If the toothpaste tablet logic appeals, it's worth applying the same thinking to the rest of your washbag, since toothpaste is rarely the only liquid eating into your 100ml allowance. Shampoo and conditioner bars, solid deodorant, and bar soap all sit outside the liquids restriction the same way tablets do, for the same reason, they're solid. It's not an all-or-nothing decision, but if you're already packing a tin of tablets, a shampoo bar in the same washbag means one less bottle to measure, bag, and worry about at the scanner.

Do the rules change if I'm flying internationally or connecting through another country?

The exact liquid allowance can vary slightly by country, some airports have started trialling higher limits, and rules occasionally tighten again at short notice, which is part of why liquids restrictions feel so inconsistent if you fly often. What doesn't tend to move around is the underlying category definition, liquids, gels, pastes, creams and aerosols are restricted, solids generally aren't. Because a tablet is solid everywhere, not just at your departure airport, it tends to be one of the few parts of a washbag you don't have to re-check every time a different country's rules change. If you're connecting through a second airport and re-clearing security, worth checking that airport's current guidance directly rather than assuming your departure country's rules travel with you, but the tablet itself isn't the part that changes.

"Extremely handy for travelers, must keep dry."
— Alan (R.B.), verified My Green Routine customer

If you've been putting off switching until you'd actually researched whether it holds up at the airport, hopefully that's a proper answer rather than just a "trust us, it's fine." We'd genuinely like to hear how it goes through security on your next trip, drop us a note or leave a comment, it helps other people flying for the first time with tablets know what to actually expect.

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Sources: UK gov.uk hand luggage liquid restrictions · Away, TSA Liquid Rules explainer · Georganics Mineral Toothtablets pricing · Denttabs Toothpaste Tabs pricing · My Green Routine on Trustpilot. Cost-per-day figures are approximate, calculated from list prices at the time of writing and may vary with promotions. This article is general travel guidance, not official airline or airport security advice; rules can vary by airport and are always subject to the judgement of security staff on the day.