Dr. Lisa Creaven is the Co-Founder & CMO at Spotlight Oral Care. Lisa studied Dentistry in Trinity College Dublin & then founded the Quay Dental Clinic in Galway in 2006. Lisa is ranked in the top 1% of Invisalign providers in Ireland/UK, subsequently selling the practice in 2018 to focus on Spotlight Oral Care full time. Lisa is responsible for communication & branding. Lisa directs the brand messaging within the marketing channels, managing strict KPIs and ROI at every stage.
Dr. Vanessa Creaven is the Co-Founder/CEO at Spotlight Oral Care. Vanessa studied Dentistry in Trinity College Dublin & King’s College London, and worked with Quay Dental Clinic in Galway prior to going full-time with Spotlight Oral Care. Vanessa is responsible for overseeing company organization and ensuring core competencies within each department with a special focus on new product development and logistics.
Can you give us a brief overview of Spotlight Oral Care and how your business came about?
We created Spotlight Oral Care in 2016 with an aim to create the best oral health products, to educate and promote oral care, empowering people to engage with true customised preventative oral care. As dentists, we have a unique insight into the needs and wants of patients and created clinically proven, clean, sustainable oral care products that really work.
We witnessed our patients struggle to find safe and effective oral care products to target their individual needs. We could see that a lot of our patients were confused about what products they should use. As dentists, our priority is creating amazing products that improve oral health but not at the expense of your overall health or the environment!
What makes Spotlight Oral Care unique is that our products have been specifically created by dentists. Our passion lies in creating clinically proven, clean, sustainable oral care products that really work. As dentists, we want to empower people to understand their own individual needs in oral care and to create the specific products to target these needs. Our clinically proven formulations are free from any nasties. Only the highest quality active essential ingredients go into our products. From our low-impact, recyclable packaging to our clean, vegan-friendly, and cruelty-free ingredients, you can rest assured when you invest in a Spotlight Oral Care essential, it’s doing good for the planet, too.
What are the challenges that you face in your business and how do you overcome them?
In the past few months, one particular challenge that has also impacted many other Irish businesses is freight and logistics. We really pay attention to where we source our packaging and our products, and they come from a number of countries including the US, UK, Brazil and Italy, so recently the logistics aspect has been challenging, but we have a fantastic team and just try to work our way through it.
What has been your greatest achievement and biggest risk?
There have been a number of career highlights over the last 5 years! We now have over 20 products in the range, all of which are clinically formulated and tailored to target specific oral health needs using clean, active ingredients.
The launch into the US and being able to maintain and build a team across three regions, Ireland, the UK and the US, are huge achievements. 18 months ago, just as Covid-19 was hitting, we launched in the US in more than 12,000 Ulta stores, which is the biggest health and beauty retailer in the US as well as 3,000 CVS stores and we launched on Target.com. I think that was probably the biggest launch or expansion that we had done to date. It meant setting up a US office and employing a US team and having people on the ground over there.
The investment from Irish development and growth capital fund manager Development Capital is a pinnacle moment for us in the business as we have experienced rapid business growth in the last 12-18 months. The financial support and expertise that comes with this investment will allow Spotlight Oral Care to expand further and continue to help us revolutionise oral care and drive expansion.
Sustainability is a key concern across all industries. What do sustainable business practices look like for Spotlight Oral Care?
At Spotlight Oral Care, sustainability is at the core of our products and our values and our passion lies in creating clinically proven, clean, sustainable oral care products that really work. We refuse to ignore the negative impact irresponsible oral care brands have on the environment. Our aim is to revolutionise the oral care industry by creating a range of oral care products that are cruelty-free, vegan friendly, free from toxins, ocean safe and 100% recyclable.
Every year, 8 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans and empty tubes end up in
landfill. It takes a plastic tube up to 500 years to degrade. Spotlight Oral Care products are presented in the world's first commercially available fully recyclable, environmentally friendly toothpaste tubes and packaging, which completely revolutionises the oral care industry.
One of our favourite sustainable innovations is our sugarcane toothpaste tubes. Generic toothpaste tubes are made from a combination of crude oil and aluminium, deeming them unrecyclable. Our toothpaste tubes are made from a byproduct of sugarcane, a fully renewable resource, grown responsibly in Brazil, making them 100% recyclable and earth-kind and can decompose in just 90 days once discarded.
Unlike regular dental floss which is made from plastic and can’t be recycled, our dental floss is made using recycled plastic bottles. An estimated 2 bottles are used in every roll of our dental floss, stopping unnecessary plastic pollution. Made in Italy, our dental floss is a recycled, recyclable oral care solution that encourages circularity and actively prevents plastic pollution.
Our bamboo toothbrushes and interdental brushes are made from natural, sustainable bamboo. The naturally antibacterial bamboo toothbrushes are ocean safe and cruelty free. While most nylon used in toothbrushes is a pollutant, ours is recyclable and won’t harm your health, or the planet’s.
Our toothpastes do not contain any microplastics which was a big issue in the oral care industry. Originally included as bulking agents, microplastics are very damaging to our systems, are not easily excreted and are also being seen in the marine life. Anything that goes into your mouth is directly absorbed into your bloodstream without passing through your stomach and metabolic pathways.
What, in your opinion, is the reason for Spotlight Oral Care’s significant growth?
Being dentists, the insights we have gained from first-hand experience with patients in the dental practice is one of the major reasons Spotlight Oral Care has been a success from the get-go and inspires new product development. When Spotlight Oral Care was founded, we identified a gap in the market for safe and effective oral care products that contained clinically proven active ingredients to target our clients’ dental needs and today, we continue to introduce new, innovative products to the market. Our product range combines the latest advances in oral care research with the highest quality of ingredients, while always keeping the end consumer in mind.
What made you decide to become a member of Guaranteed Irish?
Being a member of Guaranteed Irish is hugely beneficial and highlights that we are an Irish company - our head office is located in Galway, we have an Irish team and we have products produced in Ireland.
It’s really important to us to promote that we are an Irish brand and being a member of Guaranteed Irish means that consumers can be safe in the knowledge that they are buying and supporting Irish, which is more important than ever especially after Covid.
What’s next for Spotlight Oral Care?
We have a very exciting year lined up with a number of new launches taking place. Most recently we launched the Spotlight Oral Care Sonic Toothbrush for Children, which was a huge success and sold out!
To learn more, visit: eu.spotlightoralcare.com