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By JR Valrey, the People’s Minister of Information and editor in chief of the SF Bay View
Oakland native David Barnave has been a dental assistant for over a quarter of a century, now he has created his own dental line of biodegradable oral hygiene products under the company name HYGYNE. With one billion toothbrushes getting thrown away annually, creating 55 million tons of non-biodegradable plastic waste, David Barnave’s HYGYNE is actually helping to solve a national waste problem in the U.S.
Hygyne is also a Black owned dental hygiene product company. I urge everybody to support my younger cousin, who is pioneering and trailblazing in his field.
JR Valrey: How did you get into the dental hygiene industry? When? What inspired you?
David Barnave: I started my career as a Dental Assistant at the age of 16 by utilizing the Bay Area’s Regional Occupational Centers & Programs (ROCP). Having a career as a young Black student allowed me to be around Dentist and Hygienist on a daily basis which peaked my interest in becoming a Dental Hygienist.
I completed my prerequisites for the program at Chabot and Laney College and got accepted to one of the best schools in the country. I was licensed in California by the age of 25 and I’ve continued practicing in the clinical setting for the last 16 years in the Bay Area.
JR Valrey: Why is it important for humans to have good dental hygiene?
David Barnave: The role of the dental hygienist is a very important role in our society. We all have teeth we use to smile and chew food but the mouth is a very complicated piece of our entire body that must be addressed with experience and expertise.
The Dentist is responsible for repairing our teeth. However the Dental Hygienist is responsible for maintaining the health of your teeth and all other tissues in the mouth. Without maintenance our teeth can become victim to the bacteria that grow in our mouth and the diet we consume.
Everything that your body needs for survival outside of sunshine must first go through the mouth. Whenever our mouth is not in a state of health can you assure the rest of your body will follow.
JR Valrey: What is the name of your company and what kinds of hygiene products do you sell?
David Barnave: I founded the company HYGYNE in 2022 to create a brand of products that would move my industry into the right direction when it comes to sustainability. The products that I have been recommending to my patient’s over the last 16 years, 100% across all brands, contained plastic and harmful chemicals.
The first product I designed was a bamboo brush that would be superior to our traditional plastic brush yet biodegradable. Bamboo brushes have been around but they were poorly designed and I wouldn’t recommend them out of fear they wouldn’t be good enough to keep our mouths healthy. So I designed one that addressed each and every issue my patients had and released our line of luxurious brushes with 100% compostable packaging to add.
I then created a replacement for the traditional toothpaste which is full of chemicals and comes in a plastic tube with a plastic cap. Toothpaste tablets was the answer, however, I removed any chemicals that were not plant based and also created packaging for the toothpaste tablets that’s 100% biodegradable.
We have toothpaste tablets that are vegan and fluoride free. We also have a sodium-fluoride tablet that is the same plant based formula. To take things one more level above the rest, I released – the first of its kind – a Nano-Hydroxyapatite toothpaste tablet! Which is a natural toothpaste that will remineralize teeth without the use of fluoride.
The last product that needed to be addressed was the plastic floss that comes on a plastic spool inside a plastic container! Again I created my own compostable packaging and designed a new floss container that contains zero plastic and we used a white-corn biodegradable floss instead.
So now we have replaced every product needed to keep our mouths healthy without the use of any plastic or chemicals. The end user also doesn’t have to recycle our packaging because it’s 100% biodegradable and will return back to earth eventually. That’s the point!
JR Valrey: Can you speak to why your products are unique?
David Barnave: Our products are unique and stand out from all other brands. For one we dropped the old fashion designs of oral-care products and went with a brand new look that hasn’t been seen before. Our products look more like spa products than your normal dental products.
We’re also the only biodegradable company that services dental professionals so we can convert them and remove plastic from their dental practice. I took everything that was wrong about the traditional way manufactures design oral-care products and corrected each of these issues with modern designs. We’re also the only brand that exhibited at the American Dental Association with a fully biodegradable product line. We’re one of a kind in many ways and we’re just getting started!
JR Valrey: Why was it important to you that the products and the packaging are biodegradable?
David Barnave: According to the American Dental Association we throw away one-billion toothbrushes annually which creates 55 million tons of plastic waste annually. On average every dental office in America gives away approximately 100 plastic toothbrushes a month.
Let’s do the math now: which is 1,200 brushes a year and 12,000 every decade a dental practice is in business. This number doesn’t include the plastic floss or the toothpaste we all use in a plastic tube. We were just talking about toothbrushes!
As someone who is not only passionate about dentistry but I’m also concerned about how wasteful the human species has been in modern society. I knew that the technology was available for use so I went ahead and did the job myself and created my own brand to address the issue.
JR Valrey: How can people purchase your products?
David Barnave: Our products can be purchased only through our website www.HYGYNE.com or a dental provider. We don’t want to support companies that sell plastic so we won’t list our products anywhere else but our website and/or dental providers that support our vision and lifestyle brand.
Until other companies remove plastic from their stores we rather stay separated and lead this movement on our own for now. We have dental offices that are starting to carry our brand from Texas to Alaska and we’re expanding our reach as we grow.
JR Valrey: How can people stay up on you online?
David Barnave: As the founder of the brand you can reach me on IG @realdavidandrew. Our social media page for IG is @teamhygyne. Our TikTok is @hygyne. Please make sure you check the spelling of the word which is unique to our business and no one else.
JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of Black New World Media, heads the SF Bay View’s Oakland Bureau and is founder of his latest project, the Ministry of Information Podcast. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com and on Instagram.
