Lucia Smigel: Co-Founder & CEO of Supersmile

Episode 813

On today’s episode, we welcome Lucia Smigel, CEO & Co-Founder of Supersmile — the pioneering oral care brand she built alongside her late husband, Dr. Irwin Smigel, known as the “Father of Aesthetic Dentistry.” What began with a clinical breakthrough in tooth bonding evolved into a global brand built on one core belief: the mouth is the gateway to total health.
Lucia shares how a personal observation — that traditional toothpaste was too abrasive for bonded teeth — led to the creation of Calprox®, a patented, non-abrasive whitening formula that changed the category. We talk about building a brand from science, leading in a male-dominated industry, stepping fully into CEO after loss, and carrying forward a multi-generational, women-led legacy. A powerful conversation about resilience, innovation, and building something meant to last.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today, I’m honored to be joined by Lucia Smigel, who is the co founder and CEO of an incredible brand called Supersmile, 45 year brand. So, so incredible. The backstory is even more incredible so the pioneering oral care company she built alongside her late husband, Dr Erwin Smigel known as the father of esthetic dentistry. Have you ever stopped to think about what your daily brushing routine actually comes with harsh, abrasive sensitivity, big promises, but not always. Long term health Lusa did and what started with one simple observation that newly bonded teeth were staining too easily, turned into a decades long mission to rethink oral care from the ground up, instead of following industry norms, she and her husband helped create a clinically proven non abrasive whitening formula designed to protect both natural teeth and dental restorations long before clean even became a movement. So I cannot wait to hear more of the story from Lusa and really how she’s continued on the legacy and built an incredible, incredible brand. So welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So excited to meet you and have you here.

Lucia Smigel 2:21
Thank you. I’m very, very excited to be here, and you’ve told the whole

Kara Goldin 2:25
story, oh, not, not nearly what, what really has gone on and what you’ve accomplished. So I’m so proud of you. But for listeners just discovering Supersmile, how do you describe the brand today and what it really has always stood for?

Lucia Smigel 2:43
Well, I still feel today as it was in the beginning, it’s the only one of its kind, because we don’t use harsh abrasives, and we have a clinically proven, proprietary formula. That’s our Coca Cola. It’s calprox, which is calcium peroxide with phosphates and minerals. Your tooth is made up of your enamel is made up of calcium phosphates and minerals. Our core ingredient is made up of the same components, and so every time you brush your teeth, you’re actually re mineralizing them, and you’re keeping them shiny. Because when you’re using an abrasive, for instance, would you use an abrasive on a glass table or on a window, if you use an abrasive, it starts to scratch, and as it scratches, it takes off the shine enamel. My husband, every time he would start lecturing to any, to anyone and everyone, enamel is king. Enamel does not grow back, and one should try to maintain the enamel, because as your enamel wears away, and as you’ve been using harsh abrasives and harsh tooth toothbrushes and whatever, it starts to get thinner, your color starts to get duller. And because it gets thinner, it starts to show the dentin, so it looks yellower. At that point, you really can’t do very, very much. You need to get either bonding or veneers or crowns, which is the last resort, but veneers. And right now, you could get veneers, and then you’ll be fine, but it’s an expensive thing, and again, you’re doing my husband always said the best dentistry is no dentistry to try to maintain everything. And this is how he started every lecture all over the world. And. That that was his main goal, was not to have a product that would be scratching away the enamel and be abrasive, like, for instance, silica, which in nature and a natural toothpaste will be sand. So putting sand into your toothpaste and brushing your teeth with that is not the best choice. They now have come up with charcoal, which is even worse. You should really, I mean the ADA, and everybody says, don’t use this more than once a week, because you’re really destroying your enamel. So that’s our core. Core thing is that our product dissolves the protein pellicle to which plaque stain and bacteria attach, and it just removes it. And now we’re finding out what we always knew, but the world is finding out that the mouth is the gateway to total oral health, because if your gums are bleeding, the natural thing is, oops, I have blood on a toothbrush. I’m not going to go back there. Wrong? That’s the worst possible thing you could be doing, because it’s just going to keep growing. You leave too little bacteria alone, and they propagate faster than rabbits.

Kara Goldin 6:29
I want to get into the backstory before we even get into all of the good stuff around the brand, which you’re talking about. But so you build Supersmile alongside your husband, Dr Erwin Smigel, your late husband. Yes, so What year was this and how did it come about that you decided it’s time to build a brand? Obviously, he’s an incredible dentist at that point. And what was the point where you said, Let’s build this brand.

Lucia Smigel 7:01
Well, he was an incredible dentist, and he was the one who discovered his bonding. So if you have bonding in your mouth, he was the one who made it for esthetics. He started to close spaces, lengthen teeth, build out the cheekbones, do esthetic dentistry, and that’s how esthetic Dentistry was born, and that’s why he’s in the Smithsonian Museum as the founder of esthetic dentistry and the father of however, the original bonding material was very porous, so yes, it looked wonderful, but if you ate blueberries or if you drank coffee or if you drank tea, it would absorb and it was much harder to clean. And in those days, they had red toothpaste and green toothpaste. So if you brushed your teeth with the red toothpaste, it was close up, your teeth would start getting red because it would absorb color, and the same thing with the green toothpaste. So and it’s always about me, because my teeth were bonded, and I said, we can’t keep doing this. I mean, I had to have the hygienist go over my teeth almost like once every couple of weeks. And dentists said, You invented this, come out with something to clean the teeth. And so we started working on it, but my husband refused to have abrasives. It took us four years to actually come up to be able to encapsulate the calcium peroxide. Calcium peroxide, up until then, was used in white bread to condition it

Kara Goldin 8:50
so interesting,

Lucia Smigel 8:53
but we because we had a chemist and my husband who think outside the box, and they decided this is going to work, but we have to encapsulate well to this day, it takes 74 hours to manufacture one batch of Supersmile, whereas it takes an hour and a half to two hours to three hours to manufacture anything else, including the box. So this is why we haven’t been ripped off yet, because the manufacturing process is very complicated, and that’s why our product is they say, Where’s the white space? We’re in the white space, but nobody else is there yet, and it’s been so

Kara Goldin 9:44
interesting 45 years. So you started almost in order to create the product that was 40, not almost 50 years ago, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, incredible. So was the idea always to. Have all these products that and all these locations, as you do today, to build out the brand as you have

Lucia Smigel 10:09
no not at all. It was just to have the toothpaste, and we were giving it out to our patients. After they had bonding, they would get it. And dentists who were doing bonding, who had taken my husband’s course, because they weren’t teaching it in dental school at the time, and it was only for graduate dentists. So we had a bunch of dentists who had taken his course, who were his he was their mentor. And actually he started the American Society for dental esthetics, which will be 50 years old this year.

Kara Goldin 10:44
Wow, that’s That is incredible. And so did you always work in the business? I know you were the first bonding patient that was that was getting it, but did you always work in the business? Accidentally?

Lucia Smigel 11:02
Yes, I did not plan. That was not my that was not what I had planned to do. But I came to the office and one one of his associates, was sick, and he asked me to help out. I helped out, and he didn’t let me go home. Oh, my God, and it’s and then I got so interested in prevention, because my kids were very, very young, and I took all the courses that peterdontists Were giving, and they said, You never, ever have to lose a tooth. You never, ever have to have a cavity if you just brush your teeth properly, and this was the protocol. I started to teach brushing, flossing and home care at our office, and also to graduate dentists how for them to teach their patients how to brush. Because my husband would say it takes me a whole day to do a whole mouth, and then you’re going to go home and not take care of it. It’s not going to happen. I will do it, if you promise that you will go through this protocol and you will brush your teeth to this day. Honestly, there’s nothing that you could do for yourself in six minutes a day to brush your teeth twice a day for two minutes on a dry brush and brushing correctly and using the floss and using a rinse, there is nothing else you can do for yourself. And now we have gone. We started with one tube of toothpaste. We now have 74 SKUs. So we have you covered for the whole day for anything that can happen in your life if you’re out and you you your mouth feels bad because you just had garlic with lunch, and you have to go back to the office. I have a quickie. You could have the quickie. You put it on, you go like that. You just brushed your mouth feels clean, and you can continue your day. I mean, we have a lot, a lot of products, and then we started. It became a business. And I, I loved it. I never studied to be this was not anywhere near on my horizon when I was going to college or anything, but it was so much fun. Every manufacturer of toothpaste came to our office trying to buy our product, and I kept saying, I’m having too much fun. I don’t want to sell it. And that was the truth. So you,

Kara Goldin 13:48
so you launched, as you mentioned, with one product, and what was the point when you decided to expand outside of that one product?

Lucia Smigel 14:01
Well, I’ll tell you, when we launched that one product, it became insane, because we had my husband practice at that time with the bonding every model, every celebrity, every anybody who was anybody all over the world had come to his office at one point or another. So all these people wanted the product. Now we were making originally, we made 500 tubes at a time, and it cost us $8 a tube, and it was sell. It a Good toothpaste at that time selling for 80 cents. Our cost $8 so we would be very not generous with giving it out. Every magazine wrote about my husband with the bonding and some. Somebody was sitting in the waiting room, and she saw people coming in and saying, My this works so well on my teeth. My husband wants it. Can I please buy a tube? My tongue did not turn to $8 so I said $4 and I figured, so we’ll absorb I was not a good business person. So somebody was sitting in the waiting room, and she happened to be an editor for Mademoiselle. She bought a tube of toothpaste. She was waiting for her friend. She said nothing. The following month, we get sacks and sacks of mail orders with $4 attached to it, I had to call a lawyer and ask him, What are we going to do? We’re going to be out of that’s going to cost us a fortune shipping, I mean, and it was so anyway, that’s how we started. So we had to order 20,000 tubes, because that was the smallest amount there wasn’t I had no idea of about a fulfillment house because we didn’t have Google and the Yellow Pages did not list fulfillment houses. It was, it was crazy. It was really, really crazy. KTLA did a story on a toothpaste that was non existent in LA, people started sending us checks and FedEx envelopes

Kara Goldin 16:30
saying that they wanted the toothpaste and so what you’re so, how long was it before you launched something other than the toothpaste?

Lucia Smigel 16:39
Then, well, that actually it was because of QVC. They they begged my husband to be on. He was on, and within four minutes, he was sold out, and they said, We need a tsv. I didn’t know what is tsv. I did we had to go to Tallahassee. I mean, this was so crazy at the point we did it as a lark. And then they said, We need new products more and more and more. And then everybody wanted whiter teeth. And the only way you could get whiter teeth is by going to the dentist and having it done. And my husband was at the forefront of that people would come, they would have their teeth done whatever. And then he said, You know what we could do, an accelerator that you add to the toothpaste. You add the toothpaste and the accelerator, so you put a drop of this and a drop of that on a dry brush. Dry Brush is very, very important on a dry brush, and it’ll work. And that’s how our system came about. So interesting, amazingly. It worked amazingly. And as you continue, you can always improve. Now you can get nine shades whiter just by brushing your teeth twice a day on a dry brush. Your gums are getting healthier. Your your enamel is going to be shiny. You’re not going to be doing damage to your mouth. And it’s there’s nothing you can do for yourself in six minutes that gives you these results. I’m 91 years old, and I I’m not gonna lie. There’s no point in lying. It’s all you can just look it up anywhere, and I had, we had two hygienists in our office at all times. The only time I had a hygienist clean my teeth was when I was hiring them to see whether they had good hands and whether it was good. I now to this day, have not had a cleaning in probably 37 years. Professional cleaning. I do are the associate who was with my husband. I do see him once in a while to make sure that everything is okay. And this, he says, There’s nothing. I have all my teeth. I’m 91 amazing. Anybody can do that in six minutes twice a day. Amazing.

Kara Goldin 19:30
So you what was the point that it went outside of the office, outside of your husband’s dental practice, and how many like locations do you have today,

Lucia Smigel 19:41
I’ll tell you. The first thing was, people were coming in and buying at the desk, and my husband came over to me. He said, That’s it. Get them out. We’re not smelling toothpaste. So what I did is I took a tube of toothpaste that we had. In a package, our original package, and I went to, I don’t know if you know New York well enough, but on Avenue across the street from Barney’s, was a drug store, Boyd’s, very, very famous drugstore. They did make up for you. So I went into Boyd’s. It was two blocks away from our office at the time, and I said, Can you get me this toothpaste? I bought it in California. So he looked through the book, and he said, it’s not in the book. I said, Oh, look, there’s an address here and a phone. So he said, give me your number. I’ll call you. I’ll order it. I said, I want to. So I went, ran back to the office two blocks away, sat there and waited for him to call, which he did, and he said I’d like to order the toothpaste. And I said, I have a case pack of 12, and it’s $8 a tube. And he said, You’re out of your mind. So I said, you don’t have to take it. So he said, but I and I said, oh, and I said, it has to be at the at the checkout. So I said, You know what? Take it. If you don’t sell it in a week, I’ll take it back. You don’t pay me anything. He called me back in two hours, and he said, they must have stolen it or something. I need another I said, Send a messenger, and that’s how we did my real first location was Bigelow, because I did a show. And at that time, the owner of Bigelow was a man, an older couple, and they had their son with them, who’s now the owner of Bigelow, Ian. And the mother was looking at it. She says, Okay, let’s order it. She heard the price. She said, That’s ridiculous. Get away from her. So they went away, and Ian said, I’m placing an order. And he was my first real that of serious order, and he’s still

Kara Goldin 22:18
with us. And then, when did you open your own Supersmile locations?

Lucia Smigel 22:24
We, we never opened our own locations. We went into all the drug stores, family. We had 1000 drug stores. Then we went into department, oh, then there was a everybody wanted to buy us out one of one of our patients. I don’t know if you remember epilady. Yes, yes. Okay, so the people who owned epilady were patients of ours, and they said, don’t do anything with anybody. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll buy it. I said, No, you can’t buy it. So they said, Well, how about if we license so I said, What does that mean? Well, that means we pay you money and we do all the work. I said, okay, but it’s not you’re not the only ones who are going to have it. So Okay, okay, we made a deal, shook hands, done they but they promised me, because actually, there was another company that was doing testing, and they said they need to do a year of testing and make sure that everything is fine and blah blah. And they paid us a very, very large amount of money not to sign with anyone for one month. So I waited. They came with all their testing, and all their testing showed that there will never be a toothpaste for more than $7 and I said, No, it’s not going to happen. And so I gave them the license, and they guaranteed that they would open on the floor of Bloomingdale’s in the beauty department, we would have a counter. It was unbelievable. They did a phenomenal job. They advertised in every magazine. They spent millions of dollars on that every single department store in the United States carried it, and we did a traveling thing. I trained the people to explain the product and everything, and then they they overextended. What they did is they decided that they could do anything. So they had epi hair, epi pet, epitire. They did a tire with Hamaker Schlemmer, and they did a show that they brought from Australia, a Broadway. Show, it was three daughters who were running the company, and they went under. So that was fine. We started over. We we did all our we’ve always with QVC, and we’re there 25 years now,

Kara Goldin 25:23
that’s that’s incredible. So you, you, your husband passed away. He was your partner in life, as well as your business partner, and you stepped in to the role that you are today at age 91 the CEO of Supersmile.

Lucia Smigel 25:46
Honestly, I was always the business part. He was the face of he was on keeping state. He he was, this is, he was incredible. My daughter, now, by the way, is took over my husband’s part, she She’s the face of Supersmile. She’s on QVC, and she does everything else. She’s really she should have been the one talking, because this is what she does best.

Kara Goldin 26:14
Well, you are, you are both just so amazing. But obviously it must have been very shocking. You know, when you lose somebody, obviously, but also somebody who’s in business with you. What? What advice would you give to people about that, how you continue on?

Lucia Smigel 26:38
It was actually horrible, because when he got sick, I left the company. I hired to take over what I was doing. They wanted to buy us out. And what they did for the two years that I wasn’t there is they brought the company really down. So what happened is I came back. They never thought I would, because it was about 10 years ago, and they figured she’s never going to come back and they can buy the company for nothing. Surprise, I’m resilient. I came back and my daughter came back with me, and she has helped me tremendously, and we brought it all the way back, we restructured, and she’s the face of Supersmile on QVC. And she is very, very, really, unbelievable. She’s a lawyer. This is not, this is this was not her passion. She’s also a Broadway producer,

Kara Goldin 27:46
but oh my gosh, amazing.

Lucia Smigel 27:49
It worked out.

Kara Goldin 27:51
So I know you have a series. We’re running a little low on time. So I know you have a series of products, and one of them is the patented 45 degree toothbrush. You’ve obviously got the the incredible, Supersmile toothpaste, but if somebody wants to to go on the site and really see what you’re doing for the first time, what would you say is kind of a must that they have to purchase.

Lucia Smigel 28:24
They must purchase the toothbrush. You see the point? Yes, the triangle. The reason for that is because that goes into the gum line. When you go to the dentist, they measure it and they tell you it’s three millimeters and whatever, and it shouldn’t go beyond 3345, millimeters, your tooth starts to move. So this goes directly into it’s like your cuticle. You can do this yourself if you put your fingernail into the cuticle. Well, the toothbrush is totally mine, because I was teaching brushing, flossing and home care, and I could not get people to brush properly, because if the brush is shaped straight, it’ll go on your gum and it’ll polish the gum and it’ll your gum will start receding, or if you just go that, then you’re the bacteria is all sitting under your gum, and you’ll get periodontal disease. So that, to me, the toothbrush was key. And so this is my toothbrush and I and have you tried it?

Kara Goldin 29:42
Oh, yes, it’s I’m such a big fan. So it is absolutely terrific.

Lucia Smigel 29:48
You get under the gum so your mouth is completely clean when you the beauty of our product, I’ll tell you one thing the first time you use it, if you use it correctly, I. On a dry brush. Don’t forget dry brush. On a dry brush. When you wake up in the morning, you’re going to say, Did I or didn’t I brush? Your mouth will not feel gooky. Nothing will be growing there, because your mouth will be completely clean. You use the tongue cleaner to clean your tongue, because a lot of the bacteria is on your tongue that is known to not to give you bad breath, and actually the gum line fillings are all growing from the bacteria on your tongue. So it’s my what I really, really do now is, and I have been doing all along, is the R and D. I’m not a chemist, but I work with a chemist, and my fun, fun thing is to develop new products.

Kara Goldin 30:58
Well, Lucia, you have built such an incredible brand with Supersmile. Thank you so much for joining me today, and your story is such a powerful reminder that true innovation doesn’t come from just chasing trends, but it comes from deeply understanding what the problem is and refusing to compromise. You talked about resilience and all of the comeback and starting trends. Yes, that that is absolutely correct. So for everyone listening, be sure to check out Supersmile.com and follow along on Instagram. Thank you so much. Lucia, you have you you are so inspiring, and I cannot wait to see all that you and your daughter are doing to continue building this brand and legacy. Thank you again, and thank you everyone for listening.

Lucia Smigel 31:55
Thank you Take care. Bye, bye.

Kara Goldin 31:57
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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