Australian hygienists launches X-Products to help orphans

The love of teeth comes from my dentist dad (Dr Paul Prinsloo). As a little girl dressed in pyjamas, I remember jumping in the car and looking forward to the adventure of an after-hours dental emergency. To this day, the sharp smell of Kalzinol (Eugenol) reminds me of him in his white surgery tunic with the removable buttons.

I qualified as a dental hygienist at the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town. I met my husband Sam whilst rock climbing our favourite Table Mountain. Wedding bells chimed and a few years later our two precious daughters arrived to complete our family.

Australia beckoned and we settled here on the lovely Sunshine Coast. After completing the exams for overseas trained hygienists, I joined a periodontal practice and a family practice that offered the full range of restorative options using dental implants, bridges, etc. As a dental hygienist with 30 years experience, I am daily in the battle to fight plaque and calculus that can destroy teeth and gingiva. Along with my colleagues, I am in the quest to find effective oral care products to help maintain healthy teeth and gingiva.

This all lead to me inventing the unique X-Floss and X-Ribbon products. The unspoken need for these new products is evident in the four practices where I work. Sam and our astute business partners, Andre and Charlotte Venter were soon convinced. We put shoulder to the wheel to develop the X-Products through our newly formed company, iDontix Pty Ltd.

At the same time, we founded the charity i-Hope. The mission of i-Hope is to help rescue vulnerable orphans around the world and to provide a safe haven for them. Our main motivation is to generate funds for i-Hope and this is the purpose of developing the iDontix business. We joined forces with another team on the ground in Myanmar (Burma) called Grace Works. You can view our first orphanage project on the website www.i-hope.org.au. A local couple, Mr Ha Tang and his wife, took 18 grateful kids off the streets. This amazing couple love and care for the orphans even though they have very little for themselves. The orphanage building is nearly completed.

Help us to help them! How privileged we are to bring hope to these lovely folks. As i-Hope directors, we also involve our own children in these life-giving projects and we teach them to look beyond their own needs to care for others with more urgent needs. The i-Hope team is investigating where to build the next orphanage and the next one and so on...

During the past two years, iDontix has developed the first three X-Products and also received rights to lodge patents for both products. The greatest achievement was when we recently achieved a successful launch of the X-Products into the Australian market. Phew! Every time we set eyes on the i-Hope name printed on each of our bright iDontix packets we are reminded of the ultimate purpose of our hard labour. Help us to help them!

Erskine Dental is our appointed distributor. Dr Craig Erskine-Smith is the Sydney dentist who invented the popular Piksters interdental brushes. We joined forces with them and they gave us the crucial opportunity to take our X-Products from bright idea to full reality.

I give thanks to my Maker who has blessed me with the ideas of X-Floss and X-Ribbon. My head is spinning with several other X-Ideas, so watch this space...