Mihaela Radu and Diana Baltac built DailyCare into a curated destination for premium beauty and wellness and they're rewriting what it means to shop with intention in Eastern Europe.

Twenty years ago, buying toothpaste in Romania was an act of pure habit. You picked up whatever brand you’d always used, spent as little as possible, and moved on. No one talked about oral care as wellness. No one was brushing their teeth with a tube that smelled of Grasse roses or Nordic pine. That world, the one Mihaela Radu and Diana Baltac quietly helped build, feels like a different era entirely.

The two co-founders, who have worked together for over two decades, built Diviodent into one of Romania’s most respected distributors in the dental space, home to Opalescence, the world’s number one professional whitening brand. Then, more recently, they did something that surprised even some of their peers: they launched DailyCare.ro, an e-commerce destination pointedly unlike anything else in the market. No thousands of SKUs, no overwhelming grid of products. Instead, a tightly edited selection of things people genuinely aspire to own.

From habit to ritual

The transformation of oral care from utility to lifestyle is not something that happened overnight and Mihaela Radu and Diana Baltac lived through every phase of it. When they entered the market, they were swimming against a tide of indifference.

“What has changed the most is the level of awareness. Today people care much more about prevention, aesthetics, and overall wellbeing. A healthy smile is increasingly seen as part of personal confidence.”, Mihaela Radu, Co-founder, DailyCare

Part of that shift, Diana Baltac notes, was driven by global culture seeping into the Romanian consumer’s daily life. Travel widened horizons. Social media delivered aspirational imagery. Hollywood teeth became a shared reference point, then a personal goal.

The whitening category is a useful lens here. When Opalescence arrived in Romania, the idea of professional-grade whitening at home was still considered vaguely extravagant for people who cared a little too much about appearances. Now it’s table stakes for a broad and growing segment of consumers who simply see it as part of caring for themselves.

“Today whitening feels much more normal, and many people see it simply as another way of taking care of their smile.”, Diana Baltac, Co-founder, DailyCare.

The case against the infinite scroll

The decision to build DailyCare as a curated shop rather than a full-scale marketplace is a deliberate philosophical stance. In an era where e-commerce defaults to abundance, Mihaela Radu and Diana Baltac made the opposite bet: that people don’t want more options. They want better ones.

“Our idea is simple: we carefully assess everything that’s trending, everything people are looking for and aspiring to have to ensure the quality truly matches the promises behind it. If an item is truly remarkable, we bring it together in one place at competitive prices.”, says Mihaela Radu.

The brands that have made it onto the platform reflect that rigor. LEBON, a French toothpaste brand inspired by the perfumery traditions of Grasse, sells tubes for up to €20 in a market where most people still buy their toothpaste in the grocery aisle. Selahatin brings Nordic minimalism and ice-cold restraint to a category that’s rarely been designed with aesthetics in mind.

The pitch is essentially: brushing your teeth can be a small luxury. And it turns out, a meaningful and growing number of Romanian consumers are willing to pay for that.

“Transforming a simple daily routine into a small sensory ritual, where brushing your teeth becomes a moment of indulgence rather than just a habit.”, says Diana Baltac.

Discovery in the age of the feed

Ask the founders where their customers come from and you’ll get an answer that wouldn’t have made sense a decade ago. Premium oral care, it turns out, lives in the same Instagram real estate as skincare serums and candle brands. Its customers arrive via beauty influencers, not dental professionals.

“For brands like LEBON and Selahatin, discovery often happens through lifestyle channels rather than traditional dental recommendations. In many cases, the first connection is emotional, people see the product, love the story or the aesthetic, and then become curious to try it”, explains Mihaela Radu.

The generational split is real, and the founders are clear-eyed about it. Younger consumers move fast, they research, they share, they adopt quickly, and they drive trends through their networks with a speed that has no historical precedent. Older consumers are more varied: some resist the new, others surprise you with their curiosity.

“One group drives trends very quickly, while the other adopts them more gradually. The dynamic is quite interesting”, adds Diana Baltac.

A new kind of consumer curiosity

Perhaps the most telling signal of where the market is heading is what has surprised the founders themselves. Over the past two years, they’ve watched consumer behaviour shift in ways that go well beyond oral care towards something more personal, more considered, and harder to predict.

“People are increasingly interested in natural ingredients, refined or unusual scents, and products that feel more personal. In fragrance, for example, many customers are looking for something distinctive, a scent that not everyone else is wearing. This mindset now extends across categories, from cosmetics to oral care, where consumers are looking for products that feel distinctive, well-crafted, and aligned with their personal taste,” says Mihaela Radu.

It is a shift that connects directly to what DailyCare was built to serve: a consumer who is done with the generic, who has developed genuine taste, and who is willing to spend more but only on things that truly earn it. Premium oral care sits at the intersection of health and lifestyle, and that positioning, the founders argue, is only becoming more relevant.

The informed patient and the changing clinic

The shift isn’t only happening in shopping carts. It’s happening in dental offices too. Patients who once sat passively in the chair waiting for recommendations now walk in armed with a list of products they’ve already researched online. The dentist’s role has evolved accordingly.

“Patients today arrive much more informed than they used to. Instead of simply receiving recommendations, patients often ask specific questions about products they’ve already seen or heard about. The dentist’s role becomes more about guiding, explaining what works, and helping patients navigate all the information they encounter online”, says Diana Baltac.

This is the world DailyCare was built for: a consumer who is deeply engaged, well-informed, and hungry for curation. Someone who doesn’t need to be sold in the category, only on which products within it are genuinely worth their attention.

What comes next

The next chapter for Diviodent and DailyCare will be shaped by the same instinct that built them: keep watching what the world’s most discerning consumers are reaching for and get there first.

“We are constantly looking for new suppliers and products that are already gaining momentum internationally. We are introducing brands that are new to the Romanian market but already well established in Europe”, Diana Baltac.

The two founders describe an approach driven by the same instinct that built the business from the start: constantly scanning for what is gaining momentum internationally, and moving quickly to bring those products to Romanian consumers before anyone else does. For DailyCare, that means introducing brands already well established across Europe, but still new to this market.

*This is a press release.