How did you start ProofPlus?
Zamarin: I started the company DetraPel, the parent company of ProofPlus, 10 years ago when I was 15. The idea came about from getting into a very competitive high school in Philadelphia. My grandparents gave me $200 as a gift, and I bought my first pair of Jordans. I really didn’t want to get them dirty because they were expensive.

I didn’t know anything about chemistry at the time. So, I pivoted the idea to a shoe-cleaning company; it was my first business where we were conditioning, cleaning and repairing sports’ teams shoes for all the local sports teams in Philadelphia. I ran that business for about six months, before selling it…

I started looking into a conditioning service competitor. But that product required specialized plastic; it was super expensive. It cost $1,600 for a quart. I thought about why I had to use this super toxic product that didn’t even work—it dried off-white, it would ruin the fabric…

Ultimately, I started asking really naïve questions: “Why can’t I create an invisible film that can be peeled off whenever it got dirty without any harmful chemicals?” In particular, I learned what I know now about PFAS—and ever since then, we’ve been on a mission to come up with a PFAS-free coating that protects fabric.

Why is it important for you not to include PFAS?
Zamarin: When I started this journey, no one really paid attention to products that were PFAS-free, primarily because they didn’t perform well. Fluro chemicals are exceptionally good at a variety of performance metrics. They’re thermodynamic. They can be used in a variety of environments. They provide a lot of really good resistance and resistance properties depending on what you’re looking for, like oil and grease resistance. It could be heat-resistance. They’re very good chemicals in the sense of performance, but they sacrifice human, aquatic and environmental health for the sake of this performance.

Our impetus has always been that you do not need to sacrifice performance to have safe chemistry. We’re a performance-driven company first. We ensure all our products work just as good, if not better, than the incumbent technologies that are generally fluorinated without sacrificing any sustainability metrics.

How is the brand sustainable?
Zamarin:  From an actives perspective, it’s very sustainable. It’s a water-based product that we make in-house. We do everything from our own R&D to the manufacturing to the packaging and the sales and marketing. Everything is done in our vertically-integrated facility outside Boston, MA. We’re made in the USA.

The chemistry is fully water-based; we have biobased components, bio resins that we make ourselves. Depending on what formula we’re talking about, these different products are inherently safe. They don’t use any harmful solvents. They don’t use any flammable components. It’s as safe as safe chemistry can probably get.