I’ve been thinking about upgrading my electric toothbrush since my current crappy one is basically on death’s door after a couple years of use. Is there like a toothbrush equivalent of a Toyota Hilux I should know about?
I’ve had a Phillips Sonicare for years with no complaints.
I do have one complaint, the price of brush heads. Top notch performance otherwise.
The generics I’ve tried all work but noticably worse. The quality of the bristles is different and it doesn’t leave the same clean feeling. The price of the genuine replacements is stupid and they keep increasing it, but I’ve given up on finding a good quality generic one and just pay the price. They don’t need replacing that often anyway.
If anyone does know of a good quality C2 compatible replacement please do let me know though.
Same here, I feel as though I see the Oral-B heads on sale at least once a month, but the Sonicare heads are almost never on sale. Years ago I noticed the Philips Sonicare site running sales around Black Friday, but there haven’t been any for the last couple of Black Fridays.
Every now and again I’ll see discounted heads on Amazon, but I’ve also heard stories that there is a 50/50 chance of getting a knock-off that won’t work with handles - as Amazon combines all of their products for storage regardless of the seller
SURI. They’re made to be able to be repaired so you won’t have to replace it, and the heads are made with vegetable based plastics that you mail to them to actually get recycled.
The battery lasts for weeks and weeks, it has a UV sterilizing travel case and is the best electric toothbrush I’ve owned.
From their website:
Every toothbrush you’ve ever owned still exists.
Each year 4 billion toothbrushes are thrown away; enough to circle the earth 12 times.
Which is why we need to take toothbrush design back to first principles. If we can do our best to make each component reusable or recyclable, we can do more with less.
But surely the carbon footprint of mailing the heads back to be recycled does more harm to the planet than not recycling the heads? Seems like a bit of green thumb theatre.
Like when everyone a couple years ago were collecting their plastic bread tags to send to that guy in Africa who was turning them into recycled plastic bricks to make a house. Seriously, just bin the bread tags and send him $10, you’ll save yourself $15 in international shipping costs, and he cound buy 1000 bread tags, or even better a bunch of pre-made bricks, and we don’t have to be mailing our trash all around the world.
you dont mail them back all at once, you collect them and send them back in the envelopes they provide.
they are very, very light.
mail trucks go from my community mailbox to the city centre, then to the other hub whether or not my few ounces of brush heads are in there.
Nothing is perfect. Take biodegradable trash bags for example. There’s a higher carbon cost to make those than thin petro-chemical regular bags. You need to weigh up landfill waste vs energy costs with everything, but with more energy. Same with mining for lithium for EV batteries.
Nothing is perfect. This, I believe, is a better choice.
I have an Oral-B, and the head replacements are CAD$45. I’d get this, but I feel like I’d be wasting the toothbrush I already bought. 😞
I got an oral b toothbrush (primary selling point for me, was the pressure sensor that alerts you if you’re pressing too hard against your teeth, I think I paid around €150 for it back then), well over 8 years ago, and it’s still going strong. The battery still easily holds a week’s charge too, which is great for holidays
Phillips SonicCare for 20+ years. I think it’s helped me a lure with my dental care. Various models as the batteries wear out. The latest has Bluetooth that I never use but that doesn’t affect the cleaning part.
Used Oral-B for a few years. Then Sonicare for a few years. Preferred the former simply because the brush seemed more ergonomically shaped.
And now I use neither and brush manually again!
Reason: for me the most important factor in having a mouth that feels clean is clearing the spaces between the teeth. And electric toothbrushes don’t do this any more effectively than manual ones. A dental jet does, and I used one for years (Waterpik) and loved it. Then I discovered that even a dental jet is not as effective as something else: those little interdental brushes.
So in the end I dumped all the gadgets and just use these two manual tools.
the most important factor in having a mouth that feels clean is clearing the spaces between the teeth
This. Sadly the spaces between my teeth are way too tight for even the finest of interdental brushes, but floss works a treat for me.
This is odd. How do you get the floss between them if the brush won’t go there?? You thread it like a needle?
I have the same problem, and honestly I can just about force the thin side of the floss between my teeth but it’ll get stuck sometimes (as the tight part is the top of the tooth), which is just not great.
The brushes, which I was excited for and bought the smallest size of, will only fit under the problem area - and are uncomfy.
So I use them to clean electronics 😅
