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Smile Wipes: Wilton Business Looks to Keep Hands Clean
By Jeff Yates, Editor-in-Chief, Wilton Bulletin
Doug Jones, aka “Dr. Doug,” and Joe Spinoso, aka “Joe Germ,” demonstrate the strength of their new hand wipes.
It may not be a product that will change the
world, but Doug Jones and Joe Spinoso hope, at the least, their
customers will have a Smile.
Smile Wipes, LLC, a new hand wipe
company based in Mr. Jones’ building at 644 Danbury Road, has created
what the two men are calling the best hand wipe on the market.
It’s textured, stronger than conventional wipes, uses an antibacterial
agent rather than alcohol and has a banana scent. The packaging, too,
is a bit brighter, designed with a collage of smiley faces to encourage
children to use the wipes, the men said.
“That’s the biggest
thing, can you get the child to use the wipes,” said Mr. Spinoso. “The
first thing is the smell, but also the wrapper is inviting.”
Not just for children, though, the hand wipe is designed specifically
to combat the “gym germs,” and “fido filth” people’s hands accumulate
during the day.
Mr. Jones, owner of Stand Firm Fitness, and Mr.
Spinoso, a pet shop owner, met in 1999 when Mr. Jones was looking for a
fish tank for his newly opened gym. The two became friends and quickly
realized that in both of their respective businesses there was a common
concern.
“Whether we like it or not, athletes and animals
spread germs,” said Mr. Jones. “Up to 80% of all infections are spread
through hand contact,” Mr. Spinoso said.
The two saw dangers in
the communal contact at the gym and pet store, and looked for a hand
sanitizer to help combat the spread of disease, but couldn’t find one
they felt did the job. So they decided to develop their own product.
“We’re conscious we’re not OCD, but we’re conscious,” said Mr. Jones, of the two men’s battle with bacteria.
“Alcohol evaporates in 10 seconds,” taking with it the benefits of the
germ-killing power, said Mr. Spinoso. He said all the major hand
sanitizers on the market, from hand wipes to bottle gels, offered only
limited protection against germs because they evaporated so quickly.
Kids, and even adults, don’t like using these wipes either, he said,
because “it smells bad and it dries out your skin.”
For years,
Mr. Spinoso had been using a product called chlorhexidine gluconate to
keep his pet shop free from germs, and after looking into it a bit
more, realized the agent would also make a safe and effective hand wipe
solution.
“Chlorhexidine gluconate is the only FDA approved
anti-microbial,” he said. “It’s used in mouthwash, it’s used in
pre-surgical scrubs,” and now it’s used in hand wipes. While the
compound may be a mouthful to pronounce, Mr. Spinoso said, simply
stated, it’s the best anti-microbial on the market, and lasts much
longer than alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
“It binds gently to
the protein of your skin and gives you six hours of protection,” he
said. The compound stays on the surface of the skin, not just killing
the germs and bacteria already there, but repelling others from
hitching a ride, said Mr. Spinoso.
Having found their formula,
the two men spent a year developing their product. First they selected
a hand wipe material that was quite a bit thicker than any other wipe
on the market and held moisture quite a bit longer, as well.
Then they set about choosing a scent that would be more people and kid
friendly, picking banana as the first scent, though they eventually
plan to launch up to nine different scents.
“We had a half-million made, but the smell wasn’t right, so we scratched those,” said Mr. Jones.
Once they got the texture down, and the scent right, they began working
on a package design that wouldn’t send kids running for the hills. They
figured a wrapper covered in smiley faces would do the trick, and hope
it may also become a catch phrase among their customers: “Mom... Brian
didn’t Smile after he went to the bathroom,” “Kids... don’t forget to
Smile before you eat your lunch today,” and so on.
The two even
created an animated movie to tout their product and spread the word on
the dangers of dirty hands, taking on roles as Dr. Doug and Joe Germ,
to tell their story. Set to the style of a Dr. Seuss rhyming story, the
short feature, “Don’t Pick: Your Hands Could Be Sick: The Solution to
Your Squirm by Dr. Doug and Joe Germ,” outlines how germs collect on
hands, and why it’s important to keep hands clean. The video is
available on YouTube.com by typing in Smile Wipes.
Now, with a
product on hand, and shipments going out across the country, the two
are looking to corner the hand wipe market. While they are working to
develop corporate branding contracts with airlines, hotel chains, fast
food restaurants, national retail chains and others, the two men are
also focusing on their direct client base. On Tuesday, the two were
interviewed for the CNBC program, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.
The hand wipes, which come 75 to a bag, fit easily in a car and
individual packages may be tucked away in lunch boxes or pockets for
on-the-go use, they said.
Bags of the wipes sell for $19.95,
with a buy two get one-half off promotion. Customers may also order
monthly automatic delivery of the wipes to their home or office at a
discounted rate.
A mother's admonition to "Wipe that
smile off your face!" may soon be changing to "Wipe that Smile on your
face!" if Doug Jones and Joe Spinoso, the developers of Smile Wipes,
have anything to say. Mr Jones, the owner of Stand Firm Fitness
Center in Wilton and Mr Spinoso, the former owner of Paws and Claws Pet
Store in Wilton and Family Pets in Wilton, have created what they
believe is a better and safer disposable hand wipe. The tough,
antibacterial Smile Wipes come individually packaged in reclosable bags
of 75, and the smiling yellow face printed multiple times across each
packet will have kids - and parents - eager to keep them on hand, hope
Mr Jones and Mr Spinoso.
The men became acquainted a number of
years ago when Mr Jones bought an aquarium for his gym from Mr
Spinoso's pet store. They connected, and over the years have put their
heads together in a number of ventures. They have done several real
estate deals as partners and consider themselves inventors, always
looking for a better way to improve on an existing product or improve
the quality of life.
With "gym grime and fido filth" an issue for
the business owners, they realized that they were not happy with the
hand wipes available on the market. "We saw that there was a need for a
sturdier and safer hand wipe for children and adults," said Mr Spinoso,
who now lives in Tampa, Fla. "We decided to make something better."
"Kids
don't like the wipes, so they don't wash up as often as they should
when there is no sink available," Mr Jones, the father of four
children, observed.
What they did not like about the wipes they
purchased was that the thin sheets tore easily, meaning several of the
tissues needed to be used to do the job. Nor did they like the awkward
packaging that left users with either a handful of wipes that wouldn't
stop pulling from the top of a clumsy plastic container or that came in
clunky boxes that took up too much storage space.
It was the
drying alcohol, however, the medicinal, chemical smell of wipes, and
the nasty chemicals used in them, that they felt could be improved upon.
"With Joe living in Florida now, we were also looking for a project we could do easily living far apart," Mr Jones said.
So,
two years ago and many trials and errors later, the men ended up with
Smile Wipes. The product became available to the public just four
months ago. Carried by several stores in the Wilton area, Smile Wipes
came onto the market at an opportune time, said Mr Jones and Mr Spinoso.
"After
the MRSA [staph] scare at Newtown High School and Weston High, teachers
and parents started to contact us, asking if Smile Wipes could be made
available locally. People had seen them in the Wilton stores and wanted
them here," Mr Spinoso said.
The selling point, he said, has been
that Smile Wipes contain chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG), an
antimicrobial chemical antiseptic approved by the USFDA and used in
hospital settings. CHG is considered to be an effective agent in
fighting the MRSA infection, said Mr Spinoso and Mr Jones. The
antimicrobial activity of CHG lasts for up to six hours after using
Smile Wipes, which is nothing to sneeze at - or maybe it is.
"CHG
binds to the proteins on the surface of the skin, so it can't be wiped
off," Mr Spinoso explained. "That means that it can't be ingested if
you wipe your hands, touch food, and put it in your mouth, and it
continues to offer protection against germs for hours after you use it."
Neither
Mr Jones nor Mr Spinoso is concerned that CHG is harmful even if
somehow it is ingested. Smile Wipes contain the lowest amount of CHG
necessary to kill germs, just 0.5 percent, and CHG is a common
ingredient in dental mouth rinses at higher concentrations.
"We
still don't recommend that kids under the age of 2 use them without
supervision, though. You know how little kids like to put all kinds of
things in their mouths," Mr Jones said.
Smile Wipes are composed
of aloe and vitamin E extracts, and are lightly scented with an
all-natural banana extract, leaving them with no chemical smell. Nor
are harsh disinfectants and drying alcohol found in Smile Wipes.
There
are other details that set Smile Wipes apart from other wipes, said Mr
Jones and Mr Spinoso. The microbead cloths exfoliate skin cells and
reach beneath fingernails where germs are harbored. The wipe is also
one of the strongest on the market, they said, yet is thick and soft.
The product is 70 percent biodegradable, reflecting the businessmen's
commitment to having a low impact on the environment.
"Because they are so sturdy, you have to use far fewer wipes, too," Mr Spinoso pointed out.
To
add to the appeal, Smile Wipes offers branding, meaning that smiles can
be wiped with tissues pulled from the packet imprinted with a child's
school or organization, or as the men hope, by large businesses like
McDonald's, Wal-Mart, or JetBlue, with whom they are in negotiations.
In
response to the requests from schools in the region, Mr Spinos and Mr
Jones have had Smile Wipes approved by the State Board of Education for
distribution by Connecticut schools. The schools, however, are not
allowed to sell the product, said the two men, so they have contracted
with the Big Y on Queen Street to carry Smile Wipes. They are sold
there at an introductory price of $9.99 for the package of 75 wipes,
comparable to the pricing on smaller quantities sold by other wipes
manufacturers.
"The Smile Wipes have been very successful there,
so far," Mr Jones said. "We are hoping that after the first of the
year, Big Y will carry them chainwide."
Always looking to make a
good product better, the tropically scented wipes will soon be
available in other all-natural scents, as well.
A humorous video
made by "Dr Doug" Jones and "Joe Germ" Spinoso, online games, and
chances to win prizes, as well as more information about Smile Wipes
can be found at GetWipes.com, and orders for the wipes can be placed
online.
The men are enthusiastic promoters of what they deem to
be "the best wipe on the market," even to the point that Mr Jones'
primary vehicle is a navy blue VW bug plasterd with Smile Wipes
promotions. The product will be featured this spring on the QVC
shopping network, and they continue to hope that big corporations will
realize the superiority of Smile Wipes and make the wipes a national
commodity.
Why are these guys so happy? With sales projected in the billions, you can’t wipe the smiles off their faces. By Bob Chuvala
Doug
Jones and Joe Spinoso like to think big. Really big. Like thinking
about single orders for their handy wipe foil packets in the billions.
With a "b."
"Corporations
right now are talking about half a billion wipes, huge numbers," said
Jones who, with his business partner, Spinoso, began selling their
handy wipes last month in Wilton. "We've had to secure pricing on
everything from a bag of 75 wipes all the way to, ‘What's the price if
I order a billion?'"
The
list of restaurant chains, big-box stores and corporations that the two
have visited or are talking to or negotiating with is impressive if
confidential for the most part at this point. One chain supermarket,
for example, "seems very interested" in the wipes, Jones said. The
wipes which they call Smile Wipes "are a perfect last-item sale at
checkout, either as individual wipes or in bags of 75," he said. If the
supermarket chain sells only five bags per store per day, "we've
surpassed 75 million wipes for the year." Just with one regional
supermarket chain.
And
while the size of potential orders from big-box chains and fast-food
restaurants they're talking with "is truly astounding," Jones said,
retail sales are only the beginning. The "staggering potential" is from
airlines, casinos, health clubs, movie theaters, hotels, insurance
companies and health-care providers just about any business or
corporation that would like to put its name and logo on little packets
of handy wipes in this health-conscious society.
"I
was on the phone ten minutes ago with a representative from Cigna,"
Spinoso said. "They're interested in branding Cigna on Smile Wipes, and
they're talking about millions of wipes." Corporate orders, he said,
make projecting sales figures difficult. "One corporate order could be
for hundreds of millions of wipes."
On a less grand scale, the business partners are filling online orders from their Web site www.GetWipes.com,
but be warned, the site loads slowly, even with a high-speed Internet
connection, from local businesses and from schools in Norwalk and
Wilton that want to remove alcohol-based hand sanitizers from the
classroom and replace them with Smile Wipes. But "we're go-getters,"
Jones said, ready to tap any market. As a result of the local school's
interest, "we met with the state Department of Education and are
applying to become a vendor" to schools statewide.
Put
that all together and Jones and Spinoso are projecting sales of 1
billion wipes "no later than the end of 2008," Spinoso said. "Actually,
we're thinking we'll reach that goal in six to eight months." By the
end of 2009, sales of individual wipes should be in the 3 billion to 5
billion range, with the sale of 1 billion wipes generating about $100
million in revenues, he said.
Safe for animals and people
What
makes Jones and Spinoso and their potential customers so
enthusiastic about their hand wipes is a new formulation that sanitizes
hands for up to six hours and replaces alcohol. "Alcohol wipes last for
10 or 15 seconds, and you recontaminate yourself," Spinoso said. But
the ingredient in Smile Wipes "has a persistent antiseptic effect, and
that means that schoolchildren's hands, for example, can be relatively
germ-free for most of the school day. Clean hands, Jones said, mean
fewer germs brought to the mouth, resulting in less sickness spread
around the classroom.
Spinoso
stumbled on the ingredient when he owned pet stores in Wilton and
Norwalk a few years back. "I always worried about keeping everything
clean and the animals healthy," Spinoso said. "We had alcohol stuff to
squirt on your hands, but the dogs were allergic to it or didn't like
it. And the customers didn't like it, either. So I started to do some
research on antiseptics, on what's safe for animals and people."
Spinoso's
veterinarian recommended chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG), which the vet
uses to disinfect surgical instruments and wounds. "Dogs can lick it
and not get sick and it's safe for people's hands," he said. "And it
actually kills germs for up to six hours." Not only that, but CHG had a
track record, as well. The FDA-approved sanitizer had been on the
market since 1976 since the 1960s in Europe but not in handy wipes.
Jones
had his own concerns about germs. He owns the Stand Firm Fitness center
in Wilton and worried about keeping the surfaces of his equipment as
clean and antiseptic as possible for his customers. "Like it or not,"
Jones said, "athletes and animals spread germs."
They
met at Spinoso's pet store when Jones bought a large fish tank for his
fitness center. The two struck up an immediate friendship and began
talking germs and CHG. "We looked at boxes of wipes, buckets of wipes,
little plastic cylinder containers," Spinoso said, "but we found a lot
of negative things about all of those. The best thing we found was
individual wipes that are sealed and you carry around with you. If you
go to the mall or the stadium, you have something with you when there
are no sinks around."
"We
talked about it for five or six years," Jones said, "then two years ago
said ‘Let's focus on the simplest and least expensive idea and bring it
to fruition.'" Two years and a six-figure investment later, they had
put all the pieces together and began selling their Smile Wipes the
first week of August.
Phone calls and e-mails
Those
pieces they put together included finding business lawyers and
intellectual property lawyers, nailing down patents and trademarks and
finding a broker who in turn could find Asian manufacturers stretching
from South Korea to Taiwan to China to make the various components of
the hand wipes and put them together into a foil packet. "Our final bag
of wipes has seven different companies coming together," Jones said.
Jones
and Spinoso have been taking their bags of Smile Wipes to supermarkets
and big-box outlets. "We did a promotion at Wal-Mart in Norwalk for
five hours and every person coming in and going out got a sample of our
product," Jones said. "The kids that work there were wiping off the
little car rides and the shopping car handles." And a promotion at the
Wilton Stop & Shop "has inundated us with a barrage of phone calls
and e-mails," he said. The duo gave Smile Wipes to people as they
entered and left the store, and "though we did not try to sell the
wipes, about 50 people asked to purchase our product on site."
In
the works are promotions at Caraluzzi's Markets in Wilton and Bethel,
and a product introduction at Costco the week of Sept. 17, as well as
return visits to Stop & Shop, promoting not only their Smile Wipes,
but a "VW Smile Bug" giveaway. "It should draw quite a crowd," Jones
said.
