Garlu.
My dentist said one sentence while fixing my crown. Overnight, I turned it into a name, a brand, and a category hypothesis.
Garlu is an independent concept project created to explore how a new category could be positioned, packaged, and experienced.
Overview.
Garlu is a small dissolver for one overlooked moment in dentistry, and a brand for a category nobody had named.
The launch product. A 12 ml pen, about 40 uses, sold direct — $79 each, $429 for six.
The problem.
First, every trace of old cement has to go — leave any behind and the new crown won't bond. So the dentist scrapes: three to seven minutes, by hand, metal on tooth, while you watch. The only chemical fix came as harsh fluid in a generic plastic bottle with a blue label, for soaking instruments in the back room — never made for a mouth or the chair.
The market.
The premium-chairside corner sat empty.
The thinking.
Don't fight over the chemistry — it's solved. Win on the brand and the format, where no one is playing:
Dentists buy like craftspeople — they curate the whole room; the supply that touches the final result was the obvious claim.
Too small for the giants — big suppliers move in fifty-million-dollar lines; this peaks at five to ten.
The seat was empty — Aesop did this to soap, Glossier to makeup; dental supply had never seen the move.
A garlu is the step before the final piece; the dissolver is the step before the final crown. The tagline wrote itself: Before the final restoration.
The identity.
A look that belongs on the tray, not in the supply closet: warm paper, near-black ink, one quiet green, two typefaces. The voice is calm and exact — more apothecary than catalog.
The wordmark and tagline over the palette — warm paper, near-black ink, one quiet green.
- Fraunces · display & editorial, italic for emphasis
- DM Sans · running text, UI
- DM Mono · data, labels, specs
- Bone paper · warm, off-white ground
- Near-black ink · text and structure
- Deep moss · the single accent, used sparingly
The packaging.
A slim applicator pen, designed for the tray, not the lab.
The pen, capped and open, built for one clean pass.
The ritual.
A proposed ritual: three steps, thirty seconds, done in front of you.
Isolate
Dry the tooth. Tuck in a cotton roll. Get a clean, clear view.
Apply
Twist the cap. Wet the brush. One confident pass. The fluid does the rest.
Lift
Wipe with a dry pellet. Rinse, dry, check. The tooth is clean. Ready to seat.
The system.
One product now. A full kit by year two.
The Dissolver
The proposed launch product.
The Margin
Precision gingival isolation strips for chairside seating. Cassette of fifty.
The Finish
Single-use polishing wipes for post-cementation cleanup. Lint-free, dye-free.
The Kit
The complete seating-appointment tray. Dissolver, margin, finish, instructions.
The origin.
Back in the chair for the seventh fix of a broken temporary, as my dentist reset it she said: "a chairside dissolver designed for this exact moment would make my life so much better." I built the brand concept overnight.
Lusiné Vartan
Fifteen years in brand strategy, creative direction, and category design.
A practicing dentist
A cosmetic and restorative dentist running her own practice in the Northeast U.S.