Our Story
We didn't set out to build a brand. We set out to stop putting plastic in our mouths.
It started with a simple question — why does every toothbrush still use plastic bristles? Here's the whole story of how Gleam. came to be...
The Founder
I got lied to. Then I got to work.
Hi, I'm Tyler. I started Gleam. after my mother was diagnosed with a hormone-related illness. Doctors kept pointing to genetics. But genetics loads the gun — environment pulls the trigger. So I started looking around my home and asking what was pulling the trigger: forever chemicals in the cookware, pesticides in the tap water, plastic in basically everything.
Genetics loads the gun. Environment pulls the trigger.
Then I looked at my toothbrush. I'd used a bamboo one for years, thinking it was plastic-free. The handle was bamboo. The bristles were nylon — which is plastic — and nobody had told me. I'd been grinding plastic against my gums twice a day for years.
Your gums are some of the most absorbent tissue in your body. Every brush sheds microplastics straight into them. I couldn't find a genuinely plastic-free toothbrush anywhere. Even the "plant-based" ones use castor bean oil processed into nylon. Still plastic. Still shedding.
The toothbrush was just where it clicked. But plastic was everywhere: the cabinet, the shower, the laundry. I couldn't find genuinely non-toxic versions of any of it, so I started making them — beginning with the toothbrush. We didn't set out to build a toothbrush company. We set out to fix the daily essentials, one high-impact swap at a time.
Tyler
Founder, Gleam.this didn't happen by accident
In 1938, someone decided plastic belonged in your mouth.
The plastic in your toothbrush didn't get there by accident. It got there because plastic is cheaper — and because you can patent it. For centuries, toothbrush bristles were natural animal hair. Then in 1938, a chemical company swapped them for nylon. Not for your health. You can't patent animal hair. But you can patent plastic.
Eighty years later, almost nobody questions it. The same story runs through your cookware, your deodorant, your floss, your food packaging. A cheaper, more profitable version quietly replaced the one that was actually safe.
The problem was never one toothbrush. It's the standard the whole industry settled for. Gleam. is here to raise it.
Our Philosophy
What we believe.
01
Imperfect avoidance is the strategy.
You'll never be completely toxin-free. Nobody is. Chasing it just burns you out, and it was never the point. Your body handles a load fine. What wears it down is running redlined, every day, for decades. So skip the 40-item checklist. Make the handful of swaps that cut the most exposure for the least effort, and let the rest go. That's not settling. It's the whole game.
02
Enough with the label games.
"Natural" gets stamped on everything like it's a safety rating. It isn't. The whole industry runs on tricks like this: "fragrance" that legally hides a list of undisclosed chemicals, "BPA-free" that quietly swapped in BPS, castor-bean bristles cooked into nylon. Different label, same problem. We don't play it. We tell you what's actually in the product, what isn't, and exactly where the trade-offs are. Then you decide.
03
You're protecting people who aren't born yet.
This was never just about you. Plastics, bisphenols, the chemicals that mess with your hormones — they don't stop at your own health. They turn up in fertility, and in the reproductive organs that make the next generation. What you put in your body today, your kids and their kids inherit tomorrow. So forget a cleaner bathroom. This is your bloodline. Lowering the load now is one of the most important things you'll ever do for someone you haven't met yet.
where we started
We started with your mouth. We're not stopping there.
We began with oral care because it's the highest-impact swap in the house: twice a day, against some of the most absorbent tissue you've got. But the toothbrush was only the beginning. We're now making fluoride-free toothpaste and natural deodorant, with more daily essentials on the way — each held to the same standard: genuinely non-toxic, honestly made, no greenwashing. And we hold the packaging to the same line: the only plastic we'll accept is a foil seal on a consumable, which is why our toothpaste ships in glass with a metal lid, not a tube.