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Köppen rebrands mouth care as a luxury wellness ritual

Köppen’s Whole-Mouth Care System, US

US – Ayurveda-inspired oral care brand Köppen is expanding its whole-mouth care system as premium wellness brands continue to elevate everyday essentials into lifestyle categories.

Founded by siblings Parag and Priya Shah, the brand first went viral for its tongue scraper in 2023. Now Köppen has expanded its range to include oil pulling solutions, mouthwash, toothpaste, floss, lip balm, mouth mints and myofunctional mouth tape, positioning oral care as a holistic ritual rooted in ayurvedic practices.

The move reflects wider premiumisation in oral care, as consumers increasingly seek better-for-you products amid growing interest in fluoride-free alternatives and wellness-led routines.

Explore our Bougie Basics report to learn how brands are transforming everyday routines into indulgent self-care rituals, and The Great Beauty Blur to discover why cultural heritage is becoming a competitive advantage for brands in an increasingly homogenised market.

Strategic opportunity

Consumers are craving escapism and indulgence. Explore how your brand can premiumise the basics of your portfolio by transforming functional everyday products into emotionally resonant, design-led experiences

Foresight Friday: Savannah Scott, creative director

Every Friday, we offer an end-of-week wrap-up of the topics, issues, ideas and virals we’re all talking about. This week, creative director Savannah Scott reflects on running the 2026 Hackney Half Marathon.

: On Sunday, I took to the streets of Hackney, east London, to run my fifth Hackney Half Marathon, and once again, the energy, support and atmosphere completely blew me away. What was once a community-led half marathon now feels closer to the Glastonbury Festival – a collision of wellness, indulgence and cultural spectacle, appealing to The New Gen Z Wellness Consumer.

: Brands littered the streets with activations and sponsorships: Elf Cosmetics handed out suncare products, electrolyte company Sap was the official fuel partner and Jubel transformed parts of the route into a beer-fuelled DJ set. Elsewhere, brands including Pip & Nut and Hoka embedded themselves into the experience. And despite the increasingly commercial landscape, it’s still the crowds, community and camaraderie that genuinely get me across the finish line each year.

: But this year felt slightly different. Towards the latter half of the race, many of the brand activations had already been abandoned, products gone and support dwindling, even as runners in the later waves were still pushing through some of the hardest physical moments of their day. It made me question whether we’ve reached a new stage of performative wellness culture, where visibility matters more than participation itself.

: The democratisation of running has been overwhelmingly positive, but somewhere along the way, parts of run culture have become flattened into content culture. Finishing times become social currency, participation becomes performance and certain bodies, paces and aesthetics are elevated above others. Everyone has the right to engage with the sport however they want to. The issue is what happens when brands only cater to the most visible version of running culture, rather than the community as a whole.

: The risk with cultural moments like this is that we begin to homogenise achievement itself, much like we once did with marriage, home ownership or career milestones, forgetting that running any long distance, at any pace, is a huge physical and mental achievement worthy of celebration in its entirety.

: The discourse around Nike’s recent Boston Marathon campaign ‘Runners welcome, walkers tolerated’ speaks to this tension perfectly. What was likely intended as playful provocation instead revealed the increasingly narrow image of what wellness looks like. For a brand historically associated with the underdog and making the impossible feel accessible, the messaging fell slightly flat against the nuance that exists in running culture. We’ve built an industry around optimisation, but brands designing for the fully human experience – community, inconsistency, emotion and all – will define the next decade of wellness. Running culture doesn’t need more performance. It needs more humanity.

Quote of the week

‘Too many high-performance environments default to celebrating only the fastest, the strongest, the obvious winners. That’s a mistake. Because sustainable success is built by people who keep moving forward, not just those who move quickest’

Baz Moffat, CEO and co-founder, The Well HQ (source: LinkedIn)

Stat: Americans push back on food optimisation culture

Nowadays, US

US – A new survey of 2,000 Americans highlights growing fatigue with wellness-driven food culture and the pressure to constantly optimise eating habits.

The research finds that 57% of Americans are ‘sick and tired’ of being told what to eat and that food is now the most over-analysed category (65%), ahead of health and fitness (55%). More than six in 10 say keeping up with wellness trends feels exhausting, while 61% are tired of avoiding foods they enjoy for weight reasons.

More than three-quarters (77%) believe food should be fun, and 37% said they are trying to embrace a form of ‘counterculture’ by not buying into new food health trends.

In 2023, we published a report outlining a shift from body positivity to body hostility. The new research suggests that people are beginning to grow tired of proteinmaxxing, fibremaxxing and Longevity Menus and that this is driving a nascent return to food as a form of pleasure and social connection.

Strategic opportunity

Build products and messaging that foreground simplicity, taste and social ritual, and then quietly embed health benefits (ingredient list, portion size, nutritional balance) to make wellbeing feel effortless to fatigued consumers