Hismile

Hismile is an Australian oral-care company based in Queensland, founded in 2014 by Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic [3]. Built around at-home teeth whitening, the brand grew from a single LED-activated whitening kit into a multi-product range that includes whitening toothpaste, strips, pens and powder, electric toothbrushes, mouthwash, and a small line of lip balm and lip gloss. It remains an active, independently held business; a 2025 University of Queensland feature reported around 300 million US dollars in product sales for the 2024 financial year and distribution across more than 20,000 retail locations in over 20 countries [5].

The company is closely identified with social-media-native marketing and with the 2023–2024 viral rise of its V34 Colour Corrector Serum, a product that later became the subject of class-action litigation in the United States over its advertising.

Mirkovic and Tomic met as teenagers through their mothers, who worked at Sea World on the Gold Coast, and started the company while still in their late teens. According to a University of Queensland account, they launched in 2014 with a self-funded investment of about 20,000 Australian dollars and began as an online teeth-whitening kit business [5]. The first product was an LED-activated kit that paired a liquid whitening formula with a mouthguard-style tray.

The founders kept the business on the Gold Coast rather than relocating to Melbourne or Sydney, and have described deliberately staying outside Australia's larger business hubs [4]. Early growth was funded from revenue; editorial coverage notes the pair declined acquisition offers to keep control of the company.

Growth was rapid. SmartCompany reported that Hismile reached around 10 million Australian dollars in turnover within roughly two years of launch [6]. By about three years in, revenue was reported near 50 million Australian dollars. In 2017 the founders debuted on the Australian Financial Review Young Rich List, and in 2018 they appeared on Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia list [5].

The product line widened over time from whitening kits to flavoured toothpastes — variants have included blue raspberry, watermelon, red velvet and mango sorbet — alongside electric toothbrushes and lip products. Wikipedia notes brand collaborations with KFC, The Simpsons, Chupa Chups, Homebodii and Miffy. By the 2024 financial year, the University of Queensland feature reported roughly 300 million US dollars in product sales and stock in more than 20,000 retail outlets, with named partners including Coles in Australia, Boots in the United Kingdom and Walmart in the United States.

Hismile is described across editorial sources as bootstrapped, having taken no external capital; its parent company is not identified in the available sources. Coverage from early 2024 reported that the founders remained committed to organic growth rather than an acquisition.

Hismile presents itself as a founder-led brand that prefers to set its own direction rather than follow established competitors. In one interview the founders said, "We're not looking at what the other guys are doing... We're doing our own thing, and we're loving to do it." Internally, the company has described a "don't overthink and over research" culture that encourages teams to test and learn quickly. The brand's stated focus is at-home oral care, and it competes in a category long dominated by large players such as Colgate, Crest and Arm & Hammer.

Much of Hismile's early reach came from influencer marketing. The founders have said they sent more than half of their stock to influencers and bloggers so they could try it, and tested content across platforms including Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest to find an audience the company identified as young women aged 15 to 24 [6]. By 2024, the brand reported that influencer marketing made up less than 5 percent of its efforts as it shifted toward retail and professional dental channels.

Hismile's whitening products are built on a peroxide-free system the company markets as PAP+, named for phthalimidoperoxycaproic acid (PAP), which is positioned as an alternative to the hydrogen peroxide used in many whitening products [10]. The range spans whitening kits, strips, pens, powder and toothpaste.

Its most discussed single product is the V34 Colour Corrector Serum, a glycerin-based purple liquid containing colour additives. Rather than chemically bleaching teeth, V34 works by optical colour correction, using purple tones to visually offset yellow. The product became widely shared on TikTok in 2023 and 2024 [16]. A peer-reviewed randomised study of a colour-corrector product reported that "a single application of the test product resulted in an immediate and significant three shade improvement according to the shade guide," with the effect holding at 30 and 60 minutes [9].

Beyond the founders' inclusion on the Australian Financial Review Young Rich List in 2017 and Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2018, the company has been profiled by business and general-interest outlets including CNBC, SmartCompany, Foundr and the University of Queensland. A 2018 CNBC feature highlighted the brand's social-media strategy and its association with Kylie Jenner [11]; editorial coverage has also linked the brand to figures such as Kim Kardashian and Conor McGregor.

The V34 Colour Corrector Serum has drawn legal challenges in the United States. In 2024, a proposed class action, Jimenez et al. v. HiSmile, Inc. (Case 2:24-cv-04770), alleged that the product's before-and-after advertising was deceptive, contending that some marketing images showed the purple serum still on the teeth — an optical effect — rather than genuine whitening [7]. A second class-action complaint, Ledesma et al. v. HiSmile, was filed in 2025, extending similar allegations [8]. As of mid-2025 the cases were ongoing, and the available sources record no regulatory withdrawal of the product.

Hismile is an active, globally distributed oral-care brand. Its most recent documented activity in the available sources is the University of Queensland feature published in September 2025, which described continued operations, the 2024 sales figure and retail distribution across more than 20 countries [5].