We almost launched toothpaste - but didn't

Sat May 30 09:02:37 PDT 2026

[Nathan & Sons](https://nathanandsons.com/)

[Nathan & Sons](https://nathanandsons.com/)

At Nathan & Sons, we think carefully about every product we put our name on.

Sometimes that means months of work…only to decide not to release something.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes story about one of those products.

For 6 - 8 months we were quietly working on something new: a toothpaste.

We went deep into it. Two different manufacturers. Dozens of iterations. A formula we were genuinely proud of.

On paper, it checked almost every box.

But two things kept bothering me.

The first was packaging.

>From the very beginning, I made a promise to myself about this brand: we would get as close to plastic-free as possible. Sometimes tiny components make it unavoidable, but you will never see Nathan & Sons use an all-plastic package. 

X No plastic bottles. 
X No plastic jars.

Toothpaste tubes, unfortunately, are almost entirely plastic.

There are aluminum toothpaste tubes, which was the route I wanted to take. But after months of digging, I learned something surprising: there aren’t any toothpaste manufacturers in the U.S. that fill them.

They require a completely different machine.

Not ready to give up, I even looked into buying one myself. 

But these machines are extremely expensive, complex, and full of small moving parts, which are all potential points of failure. If we wanted to go down that path, we would need to buy the machine, learn to operate it, learn to repair it, and likely move to a larger warehouse just to house it.

That still might be worth it if we could genuinely create the best possible toothpaste on the market.

But the second issue was preservatives.

All toothpaste contains a lot of water - usually 20-50%.

Which means it also needs preservatives.

There are “natural” options like citric acid, but they would need to be used in such large amounts that they would start to negate the formula's benefits.

Once I realized that most toothpaste is essentially half water/half preservatives plus some artificial foaming agents to make you feel like you’re doing something, I lost interest.

So I pulled the plug.

I went in a different direction.

And I made [Pearl Powder.](https://nathanandsons.com/products/pearl-powder-tooth-scrub)

It has all the good stuff I wanted in a toothpaste, and none of the filler. No water. No preservatives. No foaming agents. 

Just ingredients that actually matter, like:

- Actual crushed pearls, for gentle whitening
- DIM, for improved gum health
- Nanohydroxyapatite to remineralize your enamel
- And Xylitol, to starve cavity-causing bacteria  

 It’s also travel-friendly and completely plastic-free.

I spent several months designing the packaging. As far as I know, we are the only company in the world using a jar like this.

The cap is made from American walnut wood with a cork seal.

The jar costs about twice as much as a standard glass jar with a plastic lid, and roughly three times as much as the typical plastic container.

But it’s plastic-free and a beautiful addition to your natural oral care routine.

And I learned something:
Sometimes the best products come from the ones you decide not to make.

What do you think?

Should we still attempt to take down Big Toothpaste? Or have I convinced you to [give Pearl Powder a try](https://nathanandsons.com/products/pearl-powder-tooth-scrub)?

- Nate 🌲