SWEDISH-Turkish entrepreneur Kristoffer Vural is a former magazine editor who suffered a stroke at the age of 25 that paralysed him for a year. During this time, he underwent a lot of physical therapy in order to be able to move again.
As a side-effect of the stroke, his sense of taste and smell was heightened, making many flavours unbearable to him. Even the simple act of brushing his teeth became intolerable too. Vural also developed synaesthesia, which made him experience taste and smell as colours.
The search for favours that he could tolerate – like cardamom – led to the creation, in 2016, of his brand Selahatin (named after his Turkish grandfather), a luxury oral-care company making toothpaste, mouthwash and sprays with poetic names like Blue Forever, Steam Will Rise and Of Course I Still Luv You, which elevate the simple act of teeth cleaning to a ritual.
The founder of Selahatin – Kristoffer Vural
Where did you get the inspiration for Selahatin?
My father came from Turkey and my mum Sweden, so I have a foot in both cultures. The eastern palates are slightly different, so after dinner you may chew on cardamom or something like that to freshen up. I thought it would be interesting to broaden the scope of what could be considered refreshing. I have designed products that will elevate the everyday experience of tooth brushing.
What part did having a stroke play in founding Selahatin?
Essentially, when I was younger, I had a stroke and I was paralysed on the left side of my body. I ended up spending a year in hospital. The stroke messed with my brain – it lost its ability to filter noise and taste sound – but when you have this sensitivity to things, you can really see the beauty in certain experiences. I think, especially when you’re suffering, you pay more attention to what’s beautiful in life.
Being in rehab was a dark time in my life. I just remember, I hated brushing my teeth because that’s the way you start and end your day. I just started thinking there’s got to be a better way you can do this because I can’t think of any products that are more soul-crushing. Conventional toothpaste tasted too synthetic, too chemical, too strong. They are made with 0 per cent love.
Selahatin toothpaste
Can you share with us how the products are developed – for instance the favours of the toothpastes and mouthwashes?
The stroke gave me synaesthesia, meaning my brain conflates two senses, so I perceive scent and taste as colour. Each of the aromas we make [for the brand], I see almost as paintings for the mind. I’m really driven by the creative process. I think that is the most rewarding thing. I’m able to take on a lot of pain just to be able to keep pursuing that, because it’s such a rewarding thing to do.
What are the challenges of setting up a luxury oral-care brand?
As I began to develop the brand, there were no other niche brands or boutique brands, meaning there were no niche suppliers either. That was a real challenge because I knew that I wanted aluminium tubes for the toothpastes, which none of the production lines were equipped to handle. I also wanted to use a lot of different aromas that were typically not available to them because people only ever wanted mint toothpastes.
Because this category is dominated by a few global companies that own near enough 90 per cent of the market share, there’s an incentive structure that means that doing things differently is a much bigger risk than proceeding with business as usual. Change has to come from the outside. We have to force this industry to change. I went through four or five suppliers before I found someone in Switzerland that believed in the vision and in me.
Selahatin mouthwash
Have there been any difficulties in persuading people to spend more money on their toothpaste?
People focus on the clinical side of toothpaste, but, in my opinion, they don’t consider the whole experience of tooth- and mouth-cleansing. I just needed to find people who felt passionately that this was a sector that needed to be challenged and needed some disruption and creative thinking, essentially. Without even discussing the scents and flavours, it is clear that there is a missing link in the beauty ecosystem. Why is somebody who is flying first class given Tom Ford, Aesop scents and then Colgate to clean their teeth? There is clearly something there that doesn’t fit into the picture.
People use our product and go to their dentist and the dentist says, “Your teeth look way better. What have you done?” Hopefully, the user will enjoy using my products, and so they will use them longer than they would with ordinary toothpastes and mouthwashes.
Stretch that across a year, and the difference is huge. You get a much more positive experience and, as a by-product, your teeth become a lot healthier.
How important to you is ritual?
You start and end your days by brushing your teeth, and in a sense, I think it’s a ritual. Not everyone sees it that way, but I think it can be a ritual. I think humans perform rituals as a means of aligning the connection between body and mind so it can be an act of meditation. It makes you more present.
I don’t know what it is about scent and taste, but they have the ability to move you in place and time. I have some aromas that are inspired by childhood memories – Blue Forever was inspired by nostalgia from when I was a kid in Turkey and we were on this boat in the ocean. I was coming out of the water and the sun was shining on my face and that scent captures the essence of it. Maybe it’s sort of like escapism for me.
It was born out of a dark place at the start, I just wanted to experience something that would lift me out of my everyday problems and just be taken to a magical place for a moment. The magic is really what I’m after, or what I’m looking for, and I hope to provide for all the people as well.
Selahatin – Eau D’Extrait, mouth spray
Selahatin has been called “perfume for the mouth”. Are you interested in fragrance and scent? Do you have a favourite perfume or perfumer?
The way I work around flavour and scent is similar to the way a perfumer does. With our aromas, there will always be a base of something that’s quite refreshing, with something that is emotionally moving. To me, that’s poetry in a toothpaste.
One of my favourite Selahatin aromas is called Of Course I Still Luv You and it has verbena, bergamot, cardamom, pine and three layers of mint. It’s inspired by a painting by an artist named Andrew Wyatt, which is called Christina’s World. The colours are quite light but it has a dark connotation. I tried translating that with a verbena and bergamot, which just encapsulates the balances of the lightness and the dark spices and woody characters.
What have been the high points of your career?
Finding out that Rick Owens enjoys the brand. I had no idea how he found it or why he would use it. I have been wearing his stuff for years and he’s a real inspiration of mine. That was a very good day at the office.
Selahatin toothpaste packaging
What are your future plans for the brand?
We have a lot of exciting collaborations coming up. And we still haven’t covered all the ground in the oral category yet.
My bet is that in 10 to 15 years, even products in the supermarket are going to be more reminiscent of what we’re doing in terms of design and the variety of flavour options. I think that we have the potential to do what Tesla did for electric vehicles, or what Apple did for personal computers, because they have both forged an alliance between art and science. You have got to combine both worlds, that’s when things get really exciting.
by Caroline Simpson