Toothpaste Reinvented
I have a friend, Howard Kaufman, who has done what all true entrepreneurs do. He saw a problem that needed fixing and he started a company to fix it. The problem he saw was that some of the ingredients in toothpaste were unsafe, especially for children. Howard did a bunch of reverse engineering and research and discovered that it was possible to produce toothpaste without those toxic and unnatural ingredients. Today he sells toothpaste that isn’t in a tube and doesn’t have sugar and is as healthy for you as anything made in the chemistry lab can be. It’s a pretty cool toothpaste, and I like it. The name of his company is ORL, get it? I use a flavor called mint cinnamon. ORL feels like progress to me. You can also get a bamboo toothbrush on the ORL site.
I have zero financial interest here, although I’ve received a couple of containers of toothcleaner.
The first toothpaste is said to have been created in 1824 by a Dr. Peabody, who combined soap with dental paste. In the 1850s, John Harris added chalk as an ingredient to get closer to toothpaste as we know it. This stuff came in a jar, until some dentist named Dr. Washington Sheffield, who believed it was unsanitary for multiple people to use the same jar of toothpaste, convinced Colgate to put it in a tube.
Dr. Sheffield was inspired by his son Lucius’ visits to Paris, where they both learned that the tubes used to hold paints could be used to create tubes of toothpaste.
Does this seem a little yucky to you? Time for an update? It’s been relatively the same since the late 19th century.
I am drawn toward healthy and sustainable products. Also drawn to entrepreneurs. So when a few months ago I got a solicitation out of the blue from another company trying to reconfigure toothpaste, I accepted their invitation to review it.
CanaryCleanCo makes little pellets of concentrated tooth cleaner called tooth tablets. Their tooth tablets are part of a product line that includes mouthwash and concentrated hand soap, which comes with a refillable glass jar to which you add water and the slice of soap. (I’ll talk more about the “add water” movement some time in the future. This post is only about tooth cleaners.)
It turns out there’s an entire category of competing tooth tablets that you crush with your teeth, dissolve in your mouth, and brush with a wet toothbrush. I found them on Amazon, and looked at all of them. Mostly they are used by people who want to get through TSA without a hassle. They make no claims to revolutionize the industry.
I’ve tried the Canary mint flavor, and I must tell you that it is breath-cleansingly strong, so strong that if you don’t have enough saliva in your mouth to crush the little pellets in your teeth, they will gag you. Well, they gagged me at least.
But Canary’s goal, as they tell you on their packaging, is to purge plastics. It’s a completely different goal from Howard’s which is to make toothpaste ingredients less toxic.
While both goals are commendable, both products are more expensive than a tube of toothpaste. But if you have kids, the appearance of your bathroom will be much improved using either product. It’s time for Dr. Washington Sheffield to be replaced by someone with more current packaging expertise.