Our Story
It started at Dolores Park in San Francisco. My friend Katie and I were taking a break, enjoying the weather and a Mission burrito. Our conversation drifted to oral hygiene — as it does when you're friends with a dentist.
Katie graduated from Creighton University Dental School in 2020 and built her practice in San Francisco. I'm Jacquie — I have a biochemistry degree and spent years in quality control and quality assurance across biopharma, food production, and climate tech. When a piece of meat got stuck between my teeth, I asked Katie for her professional recommendation on the best floss available.
As serial flossers, we were both frustrated with the options available in the market. Traditional floss shreds and gets stuck between your teeth. The sustainable options weren't much better. Nothing looked good enough to leave on the bathroom counter. But what really got to us was the floss pick problem — those little plastic Y-shaped picks scattered on sidewalks, parking lots, parks, even at Dolores Park itself. Single-use plastic designed to be thrown away after 30 seconds of use. It's disheartening to see people toss them on the ground so carelessly, adding to the 3 billion floss picks that end up in landfills and oceans every year.
We identified the problem: the overuse of plastics in oral care and the throwaway culture of single-use floss picks. Katie, as a practicing dentist, knew exactly what patients needed from years of treating them. My background in quality control — from pharmaceutical manufacturing to food safety to climate tech — gave me the foundation to understand what makes a product well-made and sustainable.
So we made Fancy Floss. A refillable container made from recycled plastic that you use again and again — not a single-use pick you throw on the ground. Mint-waxed dry rise floss from Italy that cleans more surface area than traditional floss. If we could create something that makes people more cognizant of their plastic usage, maybe we could make a small difference.
That's it. Just better floss from two friends who got tired of the waste.