I once didn’t wash my teeth for 3 days while hitchhiking across Europe. Not because I didn’t want to but because I had forgotten to pack my toothbrush and was lucky enough to get a lift with a truck driver who was going non-stop to my destination. I couldn’t believe my luck getting such a lift and he couldn’t believe his bad luck getting a guy with breath that could knock down 8 Bavarian barmaids serving at the Octoberfest.

This century us cave people have been smothered with new inventions to keep our teeth clean. However, we had to wait until the 60s to see our first electric toothbrush hit dentist shelves but not until the 90s was it really common place for us to have them in our bathrooms.

People really don’t enjoy visiting the dentist, not only is it expensive but sometimes it’s painful. After being pumped up with your dentist’s medication you feel all doped up and your cheeks resemble that of a rabbit. It’s no wonder we listen-up when a new dental hygiene product is advertised.

I could rattle on about how in 1990 non-NHS dentists accounted for roughly one tenth of all dentists in the UK – now that figure has risen to about a third – but I’ll save you, this is about new toothbrushes on the market.

Let us meet our travelling toothbrush, a lovely little number entering our toothbrush disposable category which would have been right up my street had I had one whilst hitching all those many years ago.

On the road – toothpaste in a brush

I recently went travelling again and decided to go travelling with the Fresh and Go disposable – I really put it through its paces with a trip to Tunisia. Claiming to have 30 uses of toothpaste within its handle it was proved and got me home with enough paste left to wash my teeth one last time before cuddling up to my girlfriend.

The brush comes fitted with a snap on cover which helped protect the bristles although a few times it fell off while in my toiletry bag making a bit of a mess with the bristles, but at the end of the day it’s a disposable. It’s a little bulkier than a regular toothbrush but certainly takes less space than carrying around a toothbrush and toothpaste separately and there’s less chance having the toothpaste will spill than with usual toothpaste.

Toothpaste is dispensed with a single twist of the knob which pushes the toothpaste up through the handle and into the bristles. The brush can be recommended for those on the go, travelling, using it at the gym etc. It’s not the sort of brush you’d be using at home on a regular basis.

These Fresh & Go guys also make dental floss of very high quality and tongue cleaners (which tiggle even the hardest of us). If you’re looking for something quite specific they’ve a kosher disposable toothbrush too!

Electricfy

When I started research on the electric toothbrush part of this article I was planning on going in to long detail about a few of the top leading brushes on the market but soon after testing a few of them I quickly made up my mind that I wouldn’t bother you with too much information about them all and just let you know which one I thought was the best and why.

The brush I chose to be the best isn’t the cheapest but then again the demographics for the 020.COM website show that the average visitor is a working professional, has a high disposable income, cares about their appearance and in general takes good care of them self both in and out. So the price tag probably won’t worry you too much if you want the best.

Introducing the Philip’s Sonicare e9500

It was only recently that I noticed my teeth had started started to have a slight discolouration upon them – yellowish I would say. I don’t know whether this was because I’m getting older or whether it was the tastey coffee i’d also recently started drinking. Anyhow, it was only after three days that I noticed the difference between what my teeth had become to what they had changed to by using this brush. My teeth had gotten back to their old self and perhaps even looked better now. I was back again, sort of had my mojo and they’d be more smiling on the horizon.

When I brushed my teeth with this brush I felt as though I was sitting in the dentist’s chair but without the pain and without all the unnecessary bills. 2 minutes of vibrating bristles later my teeth felt fresh and clean and unlike how I felt with the somewhat ordinary Oral-B electric toothbrush that sat in my cupboard gathering dust.

It’s not easy testing out different models of toothbrushes as God only gave us one mouth each so I decided to bring in my girlfriend to help me with the testing and she also tried a Sonicare toothbrush but the e5500 model. The results have been remarkable for both of us.

The e9500 retails at £129.99 and the e5500 (a standard model) retails at £79.99.

If you want sexy you’ve got it, the e9500 comes with a lovely little travel bag for taking it on holidays (it loves trips away). A spare head also comes in the box as does the charger. Once charged you should find that the brush will last for over 2 weeks like ours did. The e9500 has an LED display to show you how much charge you have left so you’ll know when to put it back on the charger.

And they told us it was an apple we needed to keep our teeth clean.