12.01.23
We registered the company in 2020, but we were not operational until July 2022. I am Nepali and “kaylaan” is a Nepalese greeting to wish you good health. Toothpaste is an everyday household item that is used everywhere in the world. But if you look at the ingredients in the commercial toothpaste, you’ll see that it comes in a single-use plastic, and after you are done, you toss the toothpaste tubes, it ends up in the landfill.
There are big companies trying to take an initiative to come up with recyclable tubes, but there is so much confusion around what is recyclable, what is not recyclable, so as a consumer you end up tossing it in the garbage, which ultimately ends up in the landfill. We wanted to deviate away from the harmful chemicals, take more of a holistic approach and alternate solutions that are made with clean ingredients.
Kaylaan specializes in toothpaste tablets. How did you get the idea for the tablets?
These tablets are not a new concept. There is a little bit of a backstory to it. I’m from the Himalayas. Growing up as a kid my family went shopping, carried our own bags, carried our own bottles, plastic was scarce, so we reused everything that was available. Before coming to America, I was so happy with all the options and reading that “this is recyclable.” And I didn’t feel guilty buying it. But quickly I learned how bad the plastic problems were and started looking for alternate solutions. What’s happening with climate change, I would get that climate anxiety. I wanted to do something to be part of a piece of the solution to the larger puzzle of climate change. I’m an engineer by training. [My husband] Wells, the cofounder, is an ER physician and a toxicologist. We put our heads together and conducted an audit of the products that creates the most trash and it was toothpaste. And then we picked toothpaste out of the research, started the project at home. The tablet industry has been booming for a while now. So, it was a perfect opportunity for us to embark on this path to create something sustainable.
Do you have any data offhand of how much toothpaste product waste is jettisoned yearly in the US?
Based on the data I’ve collected, 20 billion toothpastes are manufactured on a yearly basis. When you narrow that further down to the US, about 400 million tubes end up in the landfill.
What are the active ingredients in Kaylaan tablets?
Our product is plant-based. They are inactive ingredients, but the FDA allowed the addition of fluoride to toothpaste tablets in 2020. Fluoride is an active ingredient. The American Dental Association says that fluoride is necessary and essential to protect your teeth from tooth decay, but our water is also treated by fluoride. So, there’s this whole controversy whether to have additional fluoride in the toothpaste or not, and people are worried about fluorosis which is this white stain [that results from] too much fluoride. So, we left that decision to our consumer base—we offer fluoride and non-fluoride options. For kids, it’s necessary to have fluoride in the toothpaste.
What has customer feedback been like?
When we launched on Etsy, we quickly became a No. 1 bestseller. Toothpaste tablets are gaining popularity. Overall feedback from Etsy when we were starting out was very positive with climate change and what’s happening today. People are looking for alternate solutions, so the response has been very positive. As a manufacturer, we have control over taking the feedback from the customer and tweaking the formula, so we have been gathering that data now that we have been in the business for two years and improving on our formulation.
More Indie Profiles
ProofPlus Offers Novel and Safe Fabric Protection
Kitchen Chemist Makes Lemons into All-Natural Deo Powder
Former L'Oréal Model Fancy Acholonu Bottles Her Self-Love Journey