COUNTER SERVICE | September 24, 2026 Counter Service is our daily 60-second serving of consumer news; here, we go one level deeper into what’s changing in the cart, the bathroom cabinet, and our health routines.
TODAY’S SPECIAL: Lucy tries a different kind of buzz
Lucy launched Revive, its first nicotine-free product: mint gum made with nootropics and micronutrients, without nicotine or caffeine. The company calls it “non-stimulant energy gum.” That describes the pitch, not independent proof of an energy benefit. Taking stimulants out of a product does not, by itself, establish what the remaining ingredients will do.
Still, the move is interesting. A nicotine company is selling a familiar format to people who may want nothing to do with nicotine. Same chewing habit, very different expectations. The packaging can introduce the idea; the experience has to give someone a reason to buy another pack.
SIDE DISH: Tom’s puts a premium ingredient on the sink
Tom’s of Maine launched fluoride-free hydroxyapatite toothpaste at $11.99 a tube. Hydroxyapatite is a mineral found in tooth enamel. It is also a mouthful of a word for a product you use with your mouth. Your bathroom counter has officially entered its ingredient era. The price makes this more than a routine toothpaste restock. It asks shoppers to care enough about a specific ingredient to pay a premium. But an ingredient story is not the same as proof that a particular formula performs equivalently to fluoride toothpaste. Those are separate questions.
WHO’S COOKING: Creatine gets a drugstore address
CON-CRĒT is expanding into Target and CVS, with its creatine gummies reaching 5,036 CVS stores. That puts a gym-associated supplement into a familiar shopping trip, in a format that needs neither a scoop nor a shaker. A gummy is an easy format to understand, even if evaluating the dose and the product still takes more than recognizing the ingredient on the front.
THE CHECK
Gum, toothpaste, gummies. These launches put wellness propositions into routines people already recognize. That makes the products easier to introduce. It does not make every promise equally convincing. The useful question is still wonderfully unglamorous: what am I paying for, and what supports the claim?
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