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Steph Nightingale 𓅓

@stephnight

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Future Dental Hygienist of @champagnepapi
📍Toronto | 🦷 18 yrs chairside
Founder, Innovator, Creative Director, Operator @itsstimmie ⬇️

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Breast night ever @boobyball @rethinkbreastcancer 💕💕💕💕💕💕

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In case you’re wondering, I will never recover.❤️‍🔥🏀🦖

#stimmie
#kylelowry

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One year ago the impromptu Stimmie hall of fame 🧼🦷

#stimmie
#teeth
#oralcare

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“He came in for a filling… left with a restraining order. 😂🦷”#meme #dentist #fundentaloffice #bestdentalclinic #thedentallounge lounge

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Almost 19 years as a dental hygienist + I’ve learned something: telling someone what they should do is the easy part. And frankly, it’s lazy. How is the same “reminder” every 6 months actually helpful?

Figuring out what someone will actually do + what makes sense for their specific needs? That’s the job.

If floss fits seamlessly into your life, amazing. If it doesn’t, the conversation shouldn’t end with someone telling you to “try harder.” If you’re traveling with your Waterpik in your work bag, kudos!

But blanket statements about how often someone should floss, repeated to everyone at every single appointment, helps no one.

Ask questions. Understand the person’s habits, schedule, preferences + barriers. Then find tools that make sense for them. There are a lot of ways to build an oral-care routine. The best one is the one that actually becomes a routine.

— Steph Xx

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After work, on my way to the subway station, I found someone cool to draw 🤩

She asked: "Are you just walking around looking for inspiration?"
Me: "Kind of 😅😅😅 When I see beautiful people, I just want to draw them."

#art #artist #illustration #fashion #markers

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What inspires someone to invent a reusable toothpick?
Never disposable.
Designed for your pocket.
Gentle on teeth.
Feels amazing on your gums.
Won’t bend or break after one use.

#stimmie

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@readmilkbag @sarahbartnicka Taps in to oral care as the next big boom 🦷🤭

Steph Nightingale, Founder, Stimmie @stephnight

“One of the biggest misconceptions in oral care is that better health comes from getting people to do more. In reality, most people know they should brush, floss, and see their dentist. The challenge has never been awareness, but fitting oral care into the (real life) moments between those habits, so I think the future will be less about asking people to overhaul their routines and more about designing products around their real behaviour.

We’re already seeing consumers expect the same convenience, quality, thoughtful design, and everyday accessibility from oral care that they do from skincare, beauty, and wellness. What’s especially exciting is that oral health is becoming part of a broader conversation about overall health and daily wellbeing.

As a clinician, I always speak on this, but now the rest of the world is finally catching on and people are starting to value the connection. The brands that succeed won’t just improve oral health, they’ll make healthy habits feel effortless.”

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Success leaves clues.

One of them is sitting beside people who challenge you, inspire you, and make you better.

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For nearly two decades, she sat chairside as a dental hygienist listening to the same frustrations from patients trying to care for their teeth between visits.

What she noticed was simple. The tools people were given did not always fit the way people actually live.

So she started sketching.

What began on the back of a post-op instruction sheet eventually became **Stimmie**, a modern rethinking of a tool that had barely evolved since the 1970s. Built through 32 iterations and years of patient feedback, the goal was simple: make gum care intuitive, portable, and something people actually want to use.

Today it is recommended by dentists, hygienists, and pharmacists across North America. Many users even call it their “oral fidget.”

A reminder for founders everywhere: meaningful innovation does not always start in a lab. Sometimes it begins by listening closely to everyday problems and designing something that simply fits people’s lives better.

Read the full story on Denté.

#Denté #DentalInnovation #FounderStory #DentalHygienist #OralHealth #DentalDesign #DentalCommunity #DentalIndustry #StartupStory #DentalProfessionals

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The secret is in the sequence. Consider this your mouth reset ritual:

🧼Rinse first to loosen what’s sitting on the surface.
🧼Stimmie next to sweep along the gumline + hard-to-reach areas.
🧼Floss after to lift what’s hiding between.
🧼Brush last to polish, refresh, and finish.

#stimmie

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When Stimmie started, it was just me: A dental hygienist with a problem I couldn’t unsee, years of patient feedback, and a firm belief that oral care didn’t have to be disposable, uncomfortable, technique sensitive, or bound to the bathroom.

It started with [3] years of late nights, learning, sketches, multiple prototypes, networking, years of testing and retesting.

Trusting my instincts after tens of thousands of appointments telling me the same thing: there had to be a smarter way to care for our smiles, both in, and outside of the dental chair.

Fast forward to today still year-one in market, and it is no longer just an idea. It’s a growing team, partners, manufacturers, investors, retailers, dentists, specialists, hygienists, creators, collaborators and customers who all help carry this vision forward.

Our team is still intimate, but incredibly intentional. Designers. Advisors. Problem-solvers. Hands that touch every detail before a Stimmie ever reaches yours.

As we enter a new year, I wanted to pause, not just to look at how far we’ve come, but at who made it possible.

Stimmie has always been rooted in people. Real mouths, real routines, and real feedback. That’s what I mean when I talk about roots. We’re rooted in real-life human experiences, not claims. Every year moving forward we promise to continue to honor that.

Thank you to all the people behind Stimmie, the experiences that continue to shape it and the journey that brought us here. Your reviews, comments and requests will always be the heart of this business.

Thank you for being part of it 🤍 — Steph Xx

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