We are excited to announce that we’ve improved the packaging for jars of our Shine Remineralizing Tooth Whitening Powder.
With these improvements, we expect to have a much better seal to keep Shine from leaking from the jar. We’re also thrilled that while Shine previously had a plastic lid, this new lid is metal, which aligns with our company value to reduce our use of plastics for both product production and delivering your order to you.
So, in this quick article, we thought it would be fun to share with you the journey that Shine has taken, from the very beginning to the newest packaging. We’ll also share how you can get Shine at a steep discount. See below for details…
The Shine journey…
Y’all know that Shine started as a wish.
We dreamed of providing our community with a solution that would help remineralize the teeth.
We’d already created the HealThy Mouth Blend to help us all navigate to greater oral health by balancing the oral flora and supporting gum health. But we started envisioning a product that could help halt existing tooth decay while also protecting against future decay (and of course, the product would need to do all this without using fluoride or other ‘questionable at best’ ingredients).
So we went to work digging into the literature to educate ourselves on the various mechanisms our bodies naturally use to remineralize our teeth. After more than a year of researching, we came up with the primary and secondary focal points for this proposed product solution.
Remineralize first, then gently whiten…
First, the product had to help remineralize areas of active decay as well as help protect against future decay.
Second, we thought it would be great if the product could offer some gentle whitening benefit without all the risks of conventional tooth whitening.
With these ‘help remineralize and offer gentle whitening’ functionality goals in mind, we sifted through the research we’d found and chose the primary ingredients for the formula..
Research was complete, so now it was time to develop some prototypes.
It all started here on our kitchen counter…
The development stage took a LONG time for us. We ended up making countless batches. We were on the hunt for a formula combination that would help us all steer clear of tooth decay and that would end up being something we’d actually want to use (no use in making a helpful product that tastes horrible!)
So, we had lots of various unmarked bags of white powder in our bathroom.
With over 3 years of research and development behind us, we were finally ready to turn to a product chemist to help us develop our beta batch of Shine. He also helped us adjust the flavor to make it a little more palatable.
The chemist produced a really small batch of these Shine beta containers for us and we did a quiet product ‘soft launch’ to see what folks thought about it.
The results were beyond our expectations.
Shine beta launch results
Data from surveying our original customers of Shine found:
- 82.7% of people surveyed experienced a reduction in tooth sensitivity. Given that Shine contains no pain numbing agents, this suggests that Shine is making the tooth more resilient and remineralized.
- 82.2% of people surveyed found their teeth whiter after using Shine.
- And 93.75% of people surveyed would consider recommending Shine to a friend.
Full steam ahead…
After receiving this feedback, it was clear that we were ready to head full swing into production of our first flavor, mint Shine. This resulted in the packaging you all have come to know and recognize for Shine.
Then we launched our second flavor of Shine (cinnamon), in the same packaging but with a slightly different label.
But like many things in life, product production can be a process of trial and error (and then making improvements). This was definitely the case with our Shine jars.
When we chose the original amber glass jar and plastic lid combination for Shine, we didn’t know that they were slightly mismatched; there was a super teeny tiny gap between the lid and the lip of the jar. This meant that for a small percentage of jars that we produced, the inner seal (which lays inside the lid, then gets sealed down after the lid is screwed on) did not fully make contact with the lip of the jar.
In other words, when producing Shine, every once in a while (about 1 in every 250 jars) the lid/jar mismatch would result in an inner seal that wasn’t fully secured in place.
Those of you who have received Shine and found some of the powder leaking out of the unopened jar know what this looks like. It also caused some confusion and raised some questions on whether the loose-inner-seal Shine was safe to use.
We knew the product was fine and safe to use because it went straight from our production team who made it, to our fulfillment team who shipped it out, to our customers’ hands. But, just knowing and sharing this wasn’t enough. It’s your–the end user’s–experience that matters most to us.
So we knew we had to improve the packaging.
We decided to improve on multiple values at the same time, and searched for a lid that would provide us a perfect seal 100% of the time AND that was not plastic.
And we found it.
Choosing a metal lid with a food-grade liner inside, we found what we hope is the perfect jar-to-lid seal. And even with the vigorous testing we did in an attempt to cause leakage from the new packaging, we are really pleased with the improvements. So far, so good. 🙂
So now, we’re very proud to introduce you to the most recent version of the Shine jar. You might notice that it’s a slightly shorter jar, but don’t worry; the new jar still holds the same 60-gram amount of Shine powder. The shorter jar just means that it appears a little fuller when it’s first opened (with 100% of the product INSIDE the jar!).
We’re still planning to improve it one more step and reduce the plastic just a little more. For future batches of Shine, we’re working with our production team to switch away from the plastic shrink wrap around the jar. Instead, there will be a tamper-evident tape down one side of the jar.
In the meantime, we’re actively shipping out both flavors of Shine jars (mint and cinnamon) in our newly updated packaging.
We are eager to hear what you think of the improvements when you place your next order!
Shine inventory deep discount sale…
Do you already use Shine and know you like it?
Would you be perfectly happy with the ‘old’ packaging at a discounted price?
We still have some stock of Shine with the previous taller jars and plastic lids, so we’re going to sell them at a discount.
If you already know and like Shine and don’t mind the old jar/lid combo, feel free to check out the clearance / ‘perfectly imperfect’ section of our online store. Just so you know, if you purchase jars from this section, you may receive a jar that has the incomplete inner seal we mentioned. Rest assured, the product is still in perfect condition; the loose inner seal is just a production hiccup.
Here’s a link to purchase our ‘perfectly imperfect’ jars of Shine.
Would you like to share your personal success story using Shine?
You know us. We’re testimonial junkies.
What can we say? We just really enjoy reading those ‘love notes’ about how you’ve benefited from our products and information. It’s our #1 motivator to keep on this path of providing solutions to assist you along your journey to optimal oral health.
So, if you have a Shine success story, please share it with us here. If you’re willing to share a photo of your precious smile too, we’ll email you a gift as our thank you.
Here’s a link to the testimonials we’ve received on Shine.
Here’s a link to the Shine product page (with the newly updated packaging), where you can read all of the reviews (we are blessed that they are nearly all 5 stars!)
And again, here’s a link to our ‘perfectly imperfect’ clearance Shine jars (with the former packaging), in case you’d like to check them out.
Thank you for being on this journey with us. It really is an honor to serve you along your path to optimal oral health.
