The Interview: SURI co-founder Gyve Safavi on redefining oral care through performance, design and sustainability

Sustainability and efficacy have long been opposing forces in the modern toothbrush category. Consumers seeking the performance and experience of an electric toothbrush are often faced with the environmental impact of plastic waste, while more sustainable wooden alternatives can come at the expense of performance and user experience.

To address this gap, SURI set out to rethink what an electric toothbrush could be. Combining high-performance technology with a more considered approach to materials, durability and waste, the UK-based brand launched in 2022 to offer a more sustainable alternative without asking consumers to compromise on performance or convenience.

"For decades the market has been built on disposability, saturated with unattractive plastic brushes with superfluous features and designed with no regard for our planet," SURI co-founder and CEO, Gyve Safavi, tells TheIndustry.beauty. "The scale of the waste problem is huge."

Rather than focusing solely on sustainability, SURI set out to combine environmental considerations with performance and design. Instead of petroleum-based plastics, its brush heads and bristles are made using plant-based materials, including cornstarch and castor oil.

For SURI, however, sustainability is not simply a question of how a product is made, but what happens to it afterwards. Each set of replacement heads also comes with a prepaid compostable returns mailer, allowing customers to send used heads back to SURI to be repurposed into new materials and products.

The company says its customers have returned more than two tons of used SURI brush heads through its mail-back programme. In 2025, it worked with a UK materials studio to turn returned brush heads into soap dishes, with each dish made from 18 used heads.

"We’re incredibly proud of how far the business has come, particularly in such a short period of time. But, to use a very well-worn cliché, it genuinely does feel like we’re just getting started," notes Safavi. "Whereas most electric toothbrushes aren’t created with their full lifecycle in mind, ours is purposefully designed so we can open it up to recycle components to minimise waste at the end of its life.

Entering a market dominated by established brands with decades of consumer recognition, SURI’s challenge was not only to develop a different product, but also to persuade consumers to reconsider a category in which many had used the same brand for years.

"We’re never going to outspend those companies, so we have to think differently. That means really knowing our customers, obsessing over the experience and solving real frustrations rather than simply adding more features for the sake of it," explains Safavi.

Customer research played a significant role in shaping the initial product. Before creating its first toothbrush, the company surveyed thousands of consumers about what they liked and disliked about existing products.

SURI repeatedly heard that consumers found many electric toothbrushes bulky, noisy, difficult to travel with and overloaded with features they rarely used. In response, the company focused on a slimmer form, quieter operation, sonic performance and long battery life.

Other features, including its magnetic mirror mount, UV-cleaning travel case, plant-based brush heads and mail-back programme, were developed around the practicalities of everyday use.

"Customer obsession is probably our biggest competitive advantage. We want to create a toothbrush people love," shares Safavi.

This approach has resonated strongly, driving rapid growth and supporting the brand’s position as the UK’s fastest-growing electric toothbrush brand, according to Safavi.

The company’s progress has also been reflected in a series of broader milestones. “It’s been an incredible few years. We launched SURI in 2022 with one product and a belief that oral care could be done differently,” he recalls.

"Since then, we’ve sold more than a million toothbrushes globally, expanded into major retailers across the UK and US, achieved B Corp certification, won dozens of design and product awards, and built a community of customers who actively champion the brand."

SURI co-founders Mark Rushmore & Gyve Safavi

Continuing to build around customer needs, Safavi and fellow co-founder Mark Rushmore have worked to maintain this close connection as the business has grown and the product range has evolved. As Safavi suggests: “It’s very easy for brands to start with a genuine customer insight and then gradually move further away from the customer as the business gets bigger.”

The company also credits its progress to the strength of its team and a deliberate approach to growth. “The team has been another huge factor. We’ve built it very intentionally around people who believe in the mission, work incredibly hard and share a real passion for delivering results,” he adds.

"And finally, we’ve always tried to take a longer-term view. We’ve got big ambitions, but we’re not interested in growth at any cost. Building a healthy, profitable business gives us the freedom to keep investing in better products, better materials and better customer experiences rather than chasing short-term wins."

Looking ahead, SURI plans to continue developing its existing products, introducing new ones and using customer feedback to inform its direction. The US is also identified as a key market for future growth, alongside continued investment in relationships with existing and prospective retail partners.

"The key for us is making sure growth never comes at the expense of the product or the brand. We want to keep moving quickly, but still be really thoughtful about what we launch, where we show up and how we grow," says Safavi.

SURI’s expansion has also extended beyond electric toothbrushes. The company recently entered the toothpaste category with Restore Gel Refillable Toothpaste - a refillable system designed to provide an alternative to conventional toothpaste tubes and reduce the packaging waste associated with them.

The product was developed over two years and consists of a reusable bottle, compostable refills and a toothpaste formula designed to complement the SURI toothbrush. An airless pump dispenses a measured amount of toothpaste with each use, while the bottle is made from 50% recycled plastic and is available in three colours: Sky, Meadow and Stone.

The toothpaste formula contains nano-hydroxyapatite (n-HAp), an ingredient approved by the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety.

"The toothbrush was just the start. We've always seen the oral care ritual as a whole ecosystem rather than individual products. Like the toothbrush, toothpaste has hardly evolved in decades. Crumpled up tubes, crusty lids, lots of waste, not a great experience. So we spent two years rethinking it from the formula through to the packaging," explains Safavi.

"Restore Gel Refillable Toothpaste combines a science-backed formula with a reusable countertop bottle and revolutionary home-compostable refills. It’s now no longer a choice between a formula that works, a system that looks beautiful on your shelf, and more considered packaging."

Like its toothbrush heads, the toothpaste is also available through a subscription model. For SURI, this forms part of a broader ambition to make oral care easier to maintain and more integrated into consumers' daily routines.

"Commercially, subscription allows us to build a longer-term relationship with our customers, but that customer benefit has to come first. We’ve made sure our subscriptions are flexible, offer genuine value, and ultimately make maintaining a healthy oral care routine that little bit easier," says Safavi.

The company has also recently expanded its toothbrush range with Core 1.0, positioned as a more accessible option for consumers seeking straightforward everyday performance.

"At SURI, we’ve always believed that exceptional oral care should be experienced by as many people as possible, and our wider mission can only succeed if we bring SURI into even more bathrooms. In the UK, around 2/3 of people use an electric toothbrush, so we wanted to give people a really compelling reason to trade up from manual brushing, with a great clean that feels effortless," notes Safavi.

"The challenge was to make the SURI experience more accessible to a broader audience while still retaining the ethos that made people fall in-love with brushing with SURI: high performance, thoughtful design and our innovative approach to materials."

Safavi continues: "While Pro remains our most complete and elevated brushing experience, Core carries the same clinically-tested performance and sleek form factor into a lightweight bio-circular handle. It’s designed for those looking for everyday performance, minimalist design and a routine that feels light and effortless from the very first brush."

Customers can purchase Core 1.0 and the brand’s wider range directly from the company or through retailers including Boots, John Lewis, Currys and Planet Organic. In the US, the brand has expanded its retail presence through partners such as Target, Best Buy and Erewhon.

For a relatively young brand competing against long-established names, these retail partnerships are about more than distribution. They also play an important role in building credibility and trust with consumers.

"These partnerships are valuable not simply because they give us greater distribution, but because they help us build trust. Particularly in a category dominated by very established brands, seeing SURI alongside those names in a retailer people already know can make trying something new feel like a much easier decision," highlights Safavi.

"The goal isn’t to be everywhere for the sake of being everywhere. We want to build strong, long-term relationships with retail partners who understand what we’re trying to build and can help us introduce SURI to the right audiences."

As SURI continues to expand, its journey demonstrates how even established personal care categories can be reimagined through a combination of performance, design and sustainability.

"We’ve paved the way for customers to expect much more from the products they use every day. Performance is still fundamental, but we’ve proved that people also care about how a product looks, how it feels to use, the impact it has and whether it genuinely fits into how they like to live," says Safavi.

For SURI, the opportunity lies in identifying where existing products fall short and addressing those shortcomings without adding unnecessary complexity.

"We think the future of this category will be defined by brands who understand what people actually value, removing what they don’t need, and creating products that they love using every day."

Its continued expansion represents the beginning of a broader ambition for the company, rather than a departure from its original proposition.

"One of the challenges as we grow will be evolving the brand without losing what made SURI so distinctive in the first place. We want to stay true to the same core principles of exceptional performance, thoughtful design, a better everyday experience, and reducing waste wherever we can," concludes Safavi.

"If we can do that while bringing SURI into more routines and bathrooms, the potential impact grows with us."