Tyler Hanks wanted to provide a product he trusted enough to hand out to his dental patients and family members, but there was one glaring problem: it didn’t exist yet.
From the beginning, as a pediatric dentist in the Millcreek area since 2021, Hanks was already pushing against dentist stereotypes. Creating oral care products that reflected his values and overall vision to “do dentistry differently” took time.
“I built a practice with a mural that says ‘BITE ME’ on the wall right when you walk in. Anything the dentistry industry was doing, we tried to go the opposite way,” Hanks says. “Our toothpaste is doing the same thing. Where a traditional toothpaste tingles and foams and burns and has a ton of nasty chemicals in it, we wanted to create a clean toothpaste that was fun and tasteful and effective for kids and their parents.”
Hanks needed someone to rely on to accomplish this mission, and it was as easy as calling his old friend, Jeremy Nef. The two first met in 2007 as Southern Utah University roommates and have remained in contact ever since.
The duo got serious about providing a safer toothpaste to include in dental checkups and to use at home. First and foremost, it wouldn’t contain fluoride.
No more fluoride
Because too much fluoride can lead to a number of side effects — including dental fluorosis and neurological problems — Happy Tooth’s founders decided to axe it altogether. Besides, fluoride could be toxic in large doses, and when children are first learning to brush their teeth, they often accidentally swallow toothpaste. Not including it would keep young teeth brushers safer, so they replaced it with an even better ingredient: calcium hydroxyapatite.
“We wanted to use calcium hydroxyapatite instead of fluoride, as fluoride continues to be more problematic. Studies come out about it almost every week, signaling to us it was worse than we even thought it was,” Nef says. “From a teeth-strengthening and remineralization standpoint, hydroxyapatite is as effective as fluoride, and it’s also biocompatible and safe to swallow.”
By also creating a wide variety of flavors geared specifically to kids, the unexpected choices are as untraditional as Hanks’s dental practice, with choices like Vanilla Frosting, Lemon Twist, Sweet Orange and Mint Brownie.
Combining better ingredients with more enticing flavors, the company began receiving reports that kids who brushed with the toothpaste didn’t have any cavities after using it regularly. Customers started sharing stories about their children who now looked forward to brushing. With results like that, the small e-commerce company saw its sales grow by more than 100 percent every year since it launched three years ago, and Happy Tooth is currently the No. 6 bestselling children’s toothpaste on Amazon.
On a larger scale, sales for fluoride-free toothpaste are trending upward. Since the start of 2024, sales for toothpastes that don’t include fluoride have grown by 16 percent every month through April, according to NielsenIQ data, while fluorinated choices only increased by 2.4 percent.
Nef has been paying particular attention to statistics like those.
“Three years ago, hydroxyapatite was a pretty niche ingredient coming to market. We were one of the first kids’ toothpastes to have it in the country, and now there’s insane tailwinds,” Nef says. “We’ve been fortuitous in being early to market and have been able to ride this wave upward. We’re experiencing an industry shift. Even the No. 1 selling toothpaste on Amazon is a hydroxyapatite toothpaste, so it’s becoming more and more common.”
Hanks echoes Nef. He even uses the product himself.
“I am not anti-fluoride, but I am ingredient aware,” Hanks says. “I’ve heard it said that Steve Jobs didn’t let his kids use Macs. But as soon as we made this [toothpaste], both of us switched. It’s what our kids are using. It’s what I am using. Three years in, I feel really good about that.”
Walk into the grocery store today and the majority of toothpastes will fall into one of two categories: either they’ll a) have fluoride or b) be a natural toothpaste that eschews both fluoride and hydroxyapatite. And that’s a problem: a third option needs to exist among those others.
“There’s nothing in there to mineralize [the teeth]. You have to strengthen your teeth, not just clean them temporarily,” Hanks says. “You’re eating all day long. Not only are those carbs and sugars breaking down your enamel, but you’re also getting microabrasions and chips from wear and tear, even simply putting your cup up against your teeth. You need a toothpaste that will remineralize your teeth consistently to keep them strong. With no remineralization agent, you’re just brushing with tasty water.”
In it for the long haul
While Hanks lives his brand loudly — often posting short, funny videos to his social media accounts — customers don’t always find his products that way. Sometimes they do their own research.
Longtime Happy Tooth customer Annakaren Echeverria discovered the toothpaste when researching products that might be best for her young son. Because he was born with a cleft lip and palate, she was advised early on that his teeth would likely decay at an accelerated pace and that she needed to be cautious with whatever she used to brush his teeth with. After Echeverria placed her first order and tested it out, she never stopped ordering.
Three years later, she’s still ordering, only now it’s in larger quantities. What was originally meant for her son has become a favorite of the whole family. When her folks visit, they’ve started asking after it by name. She’s a fan, and more importantly, so is her son.
“I was dedicated to finding something that would be safe for my son, either in the long or short term. When I learned their products were healthy and all-natural, all my concerns went away,” Echeverria says. “He started brushing with Happy Tooth and, when I took him to the dentist for his checkup, the dentist had no concerns about his teeth. He loved the results we received so much that he asked what product I was using.”
“We haven’t needed to sacrifice our integrity or vision because we’ve been OK growing slow. It’s not growing slow, to be frank, but we had no investors to pay back. We weren’t in any rush to get to market.”
— Tyler Hanks
Small but mighty
So far, there aren’t many employees on the Happy Tooth product team. Sam Spendlove was brought on as the company’s e-commerce operator in 2023, the company’s third-ever hire. She witnessed firsthand how their product business was able to springboard off of Hanks’s dental practice, and believes having that credible backing in place helped them to get a proper head start. Spendlove calls it a lucky part of their overall success.
Now, as their trajectory points upward — and especially over the past year, she says — the company is focused on dialing in the best all-around toothpaste they can manage to make. There is talk of making tweaks to a select few ingredients in the current formula in order to get them to that point. And while there’s no such thing as a silver bullet, she says, they want to get as close to having a perfect toothpaste as possible.
“It seems silly. It’s toothpaste. It’s brushing teeth. But, as a mom, the last thing I need is another issue to fight with my kids about,” Spendlove says. “To be part of removing that one fight for families at night, when parents are completely depleted — or in the morning and trying to get out the door — is pretty rewarding.”
Spendlove fully believes Happy Tooth is on its way to becoming a household name. Because she also manages customer service for the oral care company, she’s in a unique position to hear both what customers have enjoyed and suggestions on what they’d like to see in the future. The company is fully invested in making its toothpaste even better than it already is in hopes of serving an even larger audience.
“It’s tricky, because if you sacrifice one thing, you end up sacrificing something else. Take away what one person doesn’t like, and another person will like what’s taken away,” Spendlove says. “No matter how perfect the formula is from a health-conscious perspective, everyone’s mouths are different. Everyone’s genetics are different. Everyone’s diet is different. All of those parts play into oral care. Still, we do the best we can from our end.”
To no cavities and beyond
For Hanks, this journey started as a more affordable toothpaste he could provide to patients, a product he could hand out on their way out the door. The overwhelmingly positive feedback led the duo to market to an even larger audience. Now, customers from states outside of Utah are their most consistent customers.
Happy Tooth has evolved to far more than just toothpaste. Offerings include mouthwash, floss, toothbrushes and even whitening strips.
“Because we didn’t get private equity involved, we were making less than a dollar a tube to start, and sometimes even losing money through marketing,” Hanks says. “But that toothpaste formula worked. We haven’t needed to sacrifice our integrity or vision because we’ve been OK growing slow. It’s not growing slow, to be frank, but we had no investors to pay back. We weren’t in any rush to get to market.”
With rapid growth still taking place, it’s difficult to say where the company might be even a few years from now. The adventure is still taking shape, and both founders are invested in where it’s headed.
“My wife asked my daughter what she wanted to be when she grows up, and her response was, ‘I want to be a toothpaste maker,’” Nef says. “And I’m like, yeah, we want to keep being toothpaste makers.”