I wasn’t at an Aesop boutique in Brooklyn to visit the $17 toothpaste—I was there to visit the $39 hand soap. I say “visit,” because the other ways to describe going into a store to look at a product ...

Twice a day we carry out the same old minty ritual—several up-and-down strokes, rinse and spit. If the experience is a bore, most of us shrug it off as the price for shiny whites. But now, a new crop ...