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I thought electric toothbrushes were silly until I tried a modern one. A manual toothbrush is not a replacement. A half-assed job with an electric toothbrush w

I thought electric toothbrushes were silly until I tried a modern one. A manual toothbrush is not a replacement. A half-assed job with an electric toothbrush will get your teeth cleaner than an extremely thorough effort with a manual toothbrush. I wish I'd tried one sooner. First time I used one it felt like I'd been in for a full dental cleaning. Bonus: their failure mode is that they become a manual toothbrush. Which, if you're used to electric, does suck a lot, but it's no worse of than you'd have been if you started with a manual to begin with. Agree about the shaver, though, but I gather some folks have a lot harder time with facial hair than I do (some ordinary soap in the shower and very cheap disposable razors do better for me than the electric razor I had years ago) so maybe it's important for them.

vidanay 4y ago
Electric toothbrushes are fantastic. I own and use one twice a day at home. I was strictly speaking in the context of the blog post with regards to being as small and as light as possible.
- corrral 4y ago
  Oh, sure, if you're really optimizing for as light as possible I guess you could ditch the toothbrush entirely and just count on buying a manual brush for a couple dollars at your destination. Personally, I'd favor cutting space/weight in a lot of other areas before giving up the electric toothbrush, though.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    Electric is heavier but they’re also much bigger. I could fit 4+ manual toothbrushes in the space that my electric toothbrush travel case takes up. I think it doesn’t include the charger either. And the shape is quite inconvenient too which constrains packing
    - notjulianjaynes 4y ago
      Fun fact: Many electric toothbrushes that use a wireless charging base will charge from a wireless phone charger if you position it right. In a pinch I've even charged mine straight off my phone using the "wireless power share" function (Galaxy Note 10, not sure how common a feature that is).
cassianoleal 4y ago
> A half-assed job with an electric toothbrush will get your teeth cleaner than an extremely thorough effort with a manual toothbrush. I've had 2 electrics, one Philips SoniCare and one Oral-B with the rotating head. Once broke within a year and the other lasted longer but got flimsy really quick. It used to take me at least twice as long to get my teeth clean with either of them than it does with a manual brush. I usually ran 3 cycles of the electric before I was more or less satisfied with the job. > Bonus: their failure mode is that they become a manual toothbrush. Yes but a horrible one. Small and oddly shaped brush heads are not ideal for manually brushing. I'm not dismissing your experience, just saying that it's not universally true.
soco 4y ago
The electric toothbrush "failure mode" is annoying mostly because the heads I use are tiny and round - definitely a pain to handle precisely without knocking a tooth from time to time.
cultofmetatron 4y ago
I use a safety razor. delivers a great shave but the blades are hard to find. stores are filled with the standard one time use cartridge crap that fills landfills because you can't recycle any of the plastics used in it. unfortunately, you'll be hard pressed to take a back of double edge razors in your check-in luggage unless you want a free trip to gitmo. In this context, a electric razor is your best bet for the environment
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  Depends on the destination perhaps, but even here in the affluent Netherlands I can buy safety razors at the chemist. And the lower the GDP, the better the availability of no-nonsense safety razor blades.
  - cultofmetatron 4y ago
    you'd be surprised. I'm in Colombia right now and I'm not sure what I'm going to do when my razor supply runs out because I haven't been able to find them in any of the drug stores here. even in the states I cant find them most places but they are easy enough to order in bulk online.
ghaff 4y ago
>A manual toothbrush is not a replacement. While I agree, carrying a manual toothbrush when traveling has been one of my compromises. That said, my newish one comes with a travel case so I may give that a try. Not sure how long it will go without recharging but may be worth experimenting.
Tepix 4y ago
Can you point me to a study that shows that electric toothbrushes work better than manual ones? Last time i looked (a long time ago), they were still equal.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Two positive: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652371/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652371/ > The subject group using the powered toothbrush demonstrated clinical and statistical improvement in overall plaque scores. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpe.13126 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpe.13126 > In the long-term, powered toothbrush seems to be effective in reducing mean PD and mean CAL progressions, besides increasing the number of teeth retained. One negative: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020653920329932 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002065392... > The results of this study shows no evidence of statistically significant difference in respect to plaque control, between Jordan Power electric toothbrush and either of Oral-B Advantage or Panbehriz Classic manual brushes in a group of dental students after 2 weeks. I'm sure you can find many more of both
- secondcoming 4y ago
  It's not a study, but the last time I was at the dentist, he asked me what I used to clean my teeth since I had pretty much zero plaque. Philips Sonicare.
  - hombre_fatal 4y ago
    I think whether you have plaque is more of a function of what you eat and that you brush consistently at all. I don't have plaque either.
  - Freak_NL 4y ago
    Our dentist definitely noticed (in a good way) when my partner and I switched to electric. For a holiday trip there's little point in bringing an electric tooth brush along though, unless you are going for months rather than days or weeks.
dan-robertson 4y ago
I think a while ago my dentist suggested that a quick brush with a manual toothbrush would likely clear more out than an equivalently quick brushing with an electric toothbrush (rough theory: you can move it faster and cover more surface area). But he claimed that electric is better if you use it more thoroughly. I also disagree that an electric toothbrush converts to a manual one. I think it converts to an unusable bad manual brush because the electric toothbrush is too heavy to move quickly. Another toothbrush tip: toothpaste is mildly abrasive and can be used as an emergency polish if e.g. you’re in a hotel getting dressed for a wedding and realise your silver cufflinks / novelty Texas-shaped belt buckle / whatever have become tarnished since you last looked at them. An electric toothbrush can help a lot here.

vidanay 4y ago

Electric toothbrushes are fantastic. I own and use one twice a day at home. I was strictly speaking in the context of the blog post with regards to being as small and as light as possible.

corrral 4y ago
Oh, sure, if you're really optimizing for as light as possible I guess you could ditch the toothbrush entirely and just count on buying a manual brush for a couple dollars at your destination. Personally, I'd favor cutting space/weight in a lot of other areas before giving up the electric toothbrush, though.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  Electric is heavier but they’re also much bigger. I could fit 4+ manual toothbrushes in the space that my electric toothbrush travel case takes up. I think it doesn’t include the charger either. And the shape is quite inconvenient too which constrains packing
  - notjulianjaynes 4y ago
    Fun fact: Many electric toothbrushes that use a wireless charging base will charge from a wireless phone charger if you position it right. In a pinch I've even charged mine straight off my phone using the "wireless power share" function (Galaxy Note 10, not sure how common a feature that is).

cassianoleal 4y ago

> A half-assed job with an electric toothbrush will get your teeth cleaner than an extremely thorough effort with a manual toothbrush. I've had 2 electrics, one Philips SoniCare and one Oral-B with the rotating head. Once broke within a year and the other lasted longer but got flimsy really quick. It used to take me at least twice as long to get my teeth clean with either of them than it does with a manual brush. I usually ran 3 cycles of the electric before I was more or less satisfied with the job. > Bonus: their failure mode is that they become a manual toothbrush. Yes but a horrible one. Small and oddly shaped brush heads are not ideal for manually brushing. I'm not dismissing your experience, just saying that it's not universally true.

soco 4y ago

The electric toothbrush "failure mode" is annoying mostly because the heads I use are tiny and round - definitely a pain to handle precisely without knocking a tooth from time to time.

cultofmetatron 4y ago

I use a safety razor. delivers a great shave but the blades are hard to find. stores are filled with the standard one time use cartridge crap that fills landfills because you can't recycle any of the plastics used in it. unfortunately, you'll be hard pressed to take a back of double edge razors in your check-in luggage unless you want a free trip to gitmo. In this context, a electric razor is your best bet for the environment

Freak_NL 4y ago
Depends on the destination perhaps, but even here in the affluent Netherlands I can buy safety razors at the chemist. And the lower the GDP, the better the availability of no-nonsense safety razor blades.
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  you'd be surprised. I'm in Colombia right now and I'm not sure what I'm going to do when my razor supply runs out because I haven't been able to find them in any of the drug stores here. even in the states I cant find them most places but they are easy enough to order in bulk online.

ghaff 4y ago

>A manual toothbrush is not a replacement. While I agree, carrying a manual toothbrush when traveling has been one of my compromises. That said, my newish one comes with a travel case so I may give that a try. Not sure how long it will go without recharging but may be worth experimenting.

Tepix 4y ago

Can you point me to a study that shows that electric toothbrushes work better than manual ones? Last time i looked (a long time ago), they were still equal.

bowsamic 4y ago
Two positive: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652371/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652371/ > The subject group using the powered toothbrush demonstrated clinical and statistical improvement in overall plaque scores. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpe.13126 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpe.13126 > In the long-term, powered toothbrush seems to be effective in reducing mean PD and mean CAL progressions, besides increasing the number of teeth retained. One negative: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020653920329932 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002065392... > The results of this study shows no evidence of statistically significant difference in respect to plaque control, between Jordan Power electric toothbrush and either of Oral-B Advantage or Panbehriz Classic manual brushes in a group of dental students after 2 weeks. I'm sure you can find many more of both
secondcoming 4y ago
It's not a study, but the last time I was at the dentist, he asked me what I used to clean my teeth since I had pretty much zero plaque. Philips Sonicare.
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  I think whether you have plaque is more of a function of what you eat and that you brush consistently at all. I don't have plaque either.
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  Our dentist definitely noticed (in a good way) when my partner and I switched to electric. For a holiday trip there's little point in bringing an electric tooth brush along though, unless you are going for months rather than days or weeks.

dan-robertson 4y ago

I think a while ago my dentist suggested that a quick brush with a manual toothbrush would likely clear more out than an equivalently quick brushing with an electric toothbrush (rough theory: you can move it faster and cover more surface area). But he claimed that electric is better if you use it more thoroughly. I also disagree that an electric toothbrush converts to a manual one. I think it converts to an unusable bad manual brush because the electric toothbrush is too heavy to move quickly. Another toothbrush tip: toothpaste is mildly abrasive and can be used as an emergency polish if e.g. you’re in a hotel getting dressed for a wedding and realise your silver cufflinks / novelty Texas-shaped belt buckle / whatever have become tarnished since you last looked at them. An electric toothbrush can help a lot here.