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 managed to get an Oral B one for cheap, and it’s been doing me fine. Maybe there are better brands, maybe there aren’t, but it does the job.
Honestly, what might be better than the toothbrush itself is the timer in it. Forces me to do the full 2 minutes rather than me stopping after 30secs or so.
My hygienist recommended the waterpik sonic fusion and I’m happy with it, but the genuine brush heads are pricey and the knockoffs all use shitty bristles that don’t do a good job and fully deform within a week. I also don’t use the water flossing as much as I should but it’s nice to have.
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.
Oral b pro 1, 2 or 3. They use the same motor and batteries as their most expensive ones, which is really the only bit that matters. Everything else is just gimmicks to justify the price… Bluetooth connections and other bullshit.
And don’t bother with official heads either. Generics work fine. Just remember to change them often.
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.