Designing a different toothpaste tube

Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News staff

A custom cap and oval-shaped orifice eliminates the mess of dried-up toothpaste stuck around the cap.

Arman Sadeghpour, CEO, Theodent, had such a unique toothpaste formulation that he knew he needed a tube to match—one that would look different from all the other toothpastes on the market.

First, he enlisted the help of New Orleans-based graphic designer Rencher Lann. “We worked together to establish an identity and come up with the branding and design concept,” Sadeghpour says.

Sadeghpour was searching for the right tube for quite a while when he began speaking to World Wide Packaging.

“They’ve been a great partner. They understood that we wanted a non-traditional design, to draw attention to the unique formulation—and they were able to implement exactly what we wanted,” he explains.

The gold, triangular-shaped custom cap, with its squared edges, lifts off with a “snap” to reveal the tube’s narrow neck and pinpoint orifice. This innovative design provides more benefits than aesthetics. “The custom cap won’t allow dried-up toothpaste to ever accumulate or clog the tube head orifice,” explains Mike Furey, account executive, World Wide Packaging.

World Wide Packaging also sought dispensing control. “Since the tube head orifice shape is oval, rather than round, it allows the user to squeeze out a perfect ribbon of product every time,” explains Furey. “Using it is a lot less messy than a traditional toothpaste tube, and the narrow tip at the orifice conveys the feeling that you are using a special product.”

The tubes are made from a medium-density resin with an EVOH barrier layer. Theodent’s artwork was transferred into graphics, and then printed on the tubes. WWP used copper-colored foils and hot-stamping to replicate the brand’s sophisticated gold lettering and logo design on the tubes.

Theodent launched in January of this year, and it is sold in 171 Whole Foods stores nationwide. It is also carried in 120 Raley’s store locations on the West coast.

Sadeghpour says he discovered his proprietary ingredient “by accident.” “We were looking at the effect that caffeine has on prenatal teeth, to see if it is harmful in the development of enamel. Then we were excited to accidentally find this molecule in chocolate that stimulates enamel growth,” he explains.

Now, Theodent’s unique formulation has attracted the attention of a few major personal care companies, which may be interested in striking a deal to license the formulation.