Two words that started
a revolution.
Stella was five years old. She wanted independence — the simple dignity of brushing her own teeth without making a mess, without needing help, without fighting a cap. Every alternative I tried failed her. Tablets were chalky. Tubes were impossible. Nothing worked for a five-year-old who just wanted to feel capable.
So I started researching. What I found was staggering: toothpaste hasn't fundamentally changed in over 100 years. And inside that century-old formula? Up to 50% water — with some tubes delivering less than 1% active ingredients at the point of contact. The product that 8 billion people use twice a day was mostly water.
I made a decision: build something better. For Stella. For every family.
"I realized she didn't just want cleaner teeth. She wanted her independence. And I couldn't give her that with anything that existed."
So I started researching. What I found was equal parts fascinating and infuriating: toothpaste hasn't fundamentally changed in over 100 years. And buried inside that century-old formula? Up to 50% water. Some tubes containing less than 1% active ingredients at the point of contact. The product that nearly every person on earth uses twice a day — was mostly water.
cavities in their lifetime
gum disease
landfills every year
The statistics were staggering. The problem was systemic. And the solution — the thing nobody had done yet — was hiding in plain sight. What if you removed the water entirely? What if you delivered concentrated active ingredients in a precision-dosed film, placed directly on the teeth — no tube, no squeeze, no mess, accessible to everyone from age five to ninety-five?
I worked night and day. I reached out to toothpaste manufacturers around the world. And for eight months, I heard the same answer, over and over:
I've been self-employed for over two decades. I've built businesses from nothing. I've been told no more times than I can count. And every time I've felt like giving up — when the uncertainty got heavy and the path went dark — I've come back to the same words I've said to myself my whole life:
"I am too blessed to be stressed,
and I refuse to lose."
Nearly eight months in, I submitted one final inquiry — to a manufacturer right here in Los Angeles. My hometown. I'd exhausted every lead and honestly didn't expect to hear back. It took a week.
I remember the day vividly. It was a Friday. Stella and I were walking through the Burbank mall after school — the same mall where I worked at Vitamin World back in high school. We were walking aimlessly. I was running out of road.
My phone rang. It was Bo — the manufacturer I'd reached out to a week earlier. I asked what I'd asked everyone: "Are you able to manufacture toothpaste in a solid-state film?"
For the first time in eight months, I didn't hear no. I heard "Maybe."
Bo sharing the first working prototype — the moment two years of development became real. After over 1,000 trials, this was the video that confirmed everything was possible.
After 500 unsuccessful trials, Bo — a scientist and mechanical engineer, one of the brightest people I've ever met — sent me a video text. A working prototype. For the first time, I had someone who was as passionate about this as I was.
Together, our R&D concluded with over 1,000 trials, more than two years of development, and over a year of my own family brushing with our toothpaste film before we ever asked a single customer to try it.
Clean Saint. The name means to be the best you can be — for yourself, your kids, your family. That's what this is. That's what it has always been.
"The results are at the crossroads of where sustainability meets innovation. We built this for Stella. We built this for your family."