Having dismissed them for years I’ve decided to buy an electric toothbrush. Despite the dentist telling me my brushing is excellent I still can’t get my teeth as clean as I would like.

Any suggestions?

Argos reviews suggest that every toothbrush between £20-125 is five star. How to choose?

can you see dirt on them? those hollywood smiles are not natural, you will never get them that ‘clean’

I have a cheap Phillips one.

On the odd occasion I’ve used a regular brush my teeth just don’t feel as clean.

I’ve got a sonicare one (it went really loud and was replaced for free about 18 months ago). As above, if I use a ‘manual’ toothbrush my teeth don’t feel clean.

I can feel dirt – at the gum line. My normal toothbrush can’t get in there

I have a Braun and a Phillips, I like the Phillips but my dentist tells me the Braun does a better job.

They are great on jockey wheels and mechs.

Hadn’t though of that. I could just get a spare brush head for garage work!

Imo go braun as replacement heads are more readily available. You don’t need to get an all singing/dancing one but the basic ones are not the greatest either. Go for a 2000 or 3000, whichever is on offer for best value for money. Check out boots or amazon etc.

Between the wife and I we’ve had about 6 Phillips Sonicare’s replaced. When the last one went we’ve changed it to a Braun.

The basic Braun ones. The very basic ones don’t have as many rpm, avoid them but you should be ok model 2000 and up.

Unfortunately batteries only last about 2 yrs and can not be changed !

We never pay more than about £20, shop around and can often get them for that kind of price

Edit: we have this one, and is even more of a bargain now at £10.50 if it comes back in stock !

http://m.boots.com/h5/cat_hub?path=%2Fen%2FOral-B-Pro-2500-Black-Rechargeable-Electric-Toothbrush_1526911%2F&unCountry=uk

Philips Sonicare here and I love it. Bought in the sale for about £40 from Amazon. Rest of family have Braun and are happy with them, but I prefer Philips.

They are definitely better than manual brushing. Braun Oral B ones are often on sale. I think I got one from Sainsbury’s reduced from £80 to about £30, but after having one and they last a good few years at least i’d have no problems spending £80 or even £100+ on one. No point in going cheap, the Braun ones are just simply better (as well as Sonicare), also you want a rechargeable one rather than one with batteries as the effectiveness reduces as the battery runs down so with a rechargeable one the battery is always fully charged and therefore the toothbrush is always working at full effectiveness.

Also one other thing that has significantly improved my oral health as well as the electric toothbrush is flossing. Actually I can’t floss because my teeth are touching each other and quite tightly packed so I use these small pipe cleaner-like brushes. At the end of the day after brushing the amount of food that comes out from the small gaps at the bottom of my teeth that brushing hasn’t shifted is amazing. Without flossing or using these brushes this debris would just sit there, build up and fester bacteria that will just cause Tartre and gum disease.

Just check out how much the brushes cost.
I’ve used the same Oral B one for about the last 10 years, but the battery only lasts about a week so I’m looking for a replacement. Often heap at Christmas, but they all seem to be in sales somewhere.

Sonicare user here. I went mid range, although at the time all Sonicare ones were expensive. The first one only lasted perhaps 3-4 years, but the second one has been going strong for perhaps close to a decade.

Never tried Braun, they weren’t really going strong when I took the plunge. It was either Sonicare or cheap battery ones, which are very much best avoided.

I’ve been a sonic toothbrush user for ten years or so. I’ve always used Philips and not had issues with the battery’s as some have.
On a recent holiday I managed just under three weeks from a charge brushing twice a day. The unit is over two years old, so that’s not bad at all.

As others have said, brushing with a manual brush just doesn’t feel clean when you’re used to a sonic.

Their expensive but well worth the money. Boots do some good deals and replace them without issue if you have any issues.

The Oral B ones that sit on a little white charger don’t seem to last, the integral batteries go weak. Their version with two AA rechargeables is far better IME.

Yep, another vote for the above – good but batteries die.

This reminds me, I’ll going an rip open my old OB handle and see if I can change the included cell…

Worth noting that the Oral B heads are all interchangeable. So there’s no point in spending oodles of cash on a higher model that just has a different head.

I’m on my second after the battery expired in the first, but between the two I’ve had well over ten years’ use out of them.

I’ve got an Oral B one, think it was on sale for about £75 five years ago. It’s massively improved my dental health – my teeth have always been excellent (mid 30s and still no fillings or cavities!), but my gums had a tendancy to bleed as a) I have very tight teeth (I often break floss trying to get between them), and b) my mouth doesn’t open that wide, so getting a normal sized brush in there is actually a bit awkward! My bleed score at the dentist went from 26 to 3 after getting an electric brush (although admittedly having all four wisdom teeth removed also helped with the crowding situation, I still break floss though!)

Right,

so it appears possible to open the OralB Professional series and withdraw the battery and vibrator. If being more careful, one should be able to withdraw the internals without breaking the wires for the wireless charging. However if you’re going to de/resolder a tabbed NiMH battery, you should also be up for soldering a small broken wire.

The battery is not a full-size AA, it’s a 2/3rds I think [there’s an AA here for comparison]

Kinda hard to see there. In a shameless abuse of power I’ve made your image clickable so folk can view a larger version if they like.

The professional view is as follows

You can do as good a job with a manual brush as an electric one if you know what you are doing/ have good dexterity/ are a dentist but the evidence is that the average person does a better job with an electric brush.

You still need to floss / use little brushes between the teeth whatever brush you have.

The brush should have a small round oscillating/reciprocating head – I.e. twisting back and forth not just vibrating or spinning.

The Braun / oral b brushes are the best – better than sonicare/ Colgate etc

You don’t need to spend a fortune. Middle of the range Braun will be fine – they invented a great basic concept years ago then have had to come up with lots of bells and whistles to keep coming out with new models. You don’t need a wireless timer etc.

Sainsburies boots etc often have them on sale