No matter what your specific oral health need, Oral-B’s Special brush heads are designed to help with everything from cleaning your braces effectively to whitening. When your Oral-B electric toothbrush needs a replacement head, there are a number of options available to you. A few of these include the Oral-B 3D White, Oral-B FlossAction MicroPulse, and the Oral-B CrossAction replacement heads. Which one you should get depends on what kind of toothbrush you have. Since Oral-B touts that their new drive system provides a better user experience and brushing outcome, it seems likely that they’ll continue to use this mechanism for future models. So, over time, it seems likely that the number of brush head styles that support this new mounting system may increase and possibly supplant the older design.
We haven’t tested mouthguard-style automatic toothbrushes made specifically for adults, such as the Y-Brush and the AutoBrush Pro. But for our guide to the best electric toothbrush for kids, we tested the AutoBrush Kids, which was unimpressive. Not only did it leave behind specks of food, it also required using a special kind of toothpaste made by AutoBrush.
Its large size may also make it difficult for some to angle its bristles toward their gum line. It caught our eye that the Oral-B website seems to stress that this head “naturally” whitens teeth. So whatever is especially “natural” about a rubber cup filled with silica particles (grit) from toothpaste being used to scrub the surface stain off teeth, yes, this head does that. In a comment on a retailer’s website, the poster stated that they had cut the bristles off an old 3D-White head and were using the cup alone to do touch up polishing on their teeth every once in a while. As compared to the FlossAction, this head is both round (instead of oblong) and slightly smaller, making it easier to clean all areas of your mouth.
If light surface staining has already formed on your teeth, it’s possible for a toothbrush to scrub it off over time (a little comes off each time you brush). With this issue, it’s important to understand that the only thing that a toothbrush can do to whiten teeth is to remove or prevent stain that forms on the surface of your teeth (surface staining). The general idea would be that you would use these brushes to clean your interdental spaces and along your gum line, and then use a conventional Oral-B head to clean everywhere afterward. While not a conventional Oral-B brush head, the Deep Sweep probably makes a reasonable choice. Trying to use a Power Tip to clean your entire mouth would be quite tedious. And would almost certainly prove to be less effective than using any of Oral-B’s conventional heads.
Our experts test thousands of products each year using thoughtful test plans that bring out key performance differences between competing products. And, to assure complete independence, we buy all the products we test ourselves. We did not test the Foreo Issa 3, a silicone brush with a sleek and unusual look.. Customer reviews suggest that the all-silicone brush tips lack the ability to clean as thoroughly as plastic bristles, and that this brush has a tendency to stop working not long after purchase.
For this guide, we focused on electric toothbrushes with rechargeable batteries. Those with replaceable batteries tend to have less-powerful motors and produce more battery waste over their oral b genius toothbrush usable lives. Philips Sonicare’s superior technology pulses fluid between the teeth and along the gum line while 62,000 brush strokes per minute gently and effectively remove plaque.
“As far as whitening goes, all toothbrushes help remove surface stains when used with a toothpaste because toothpastes contain mild abrasives and detergents for this purpose,” said Messina. The most significant thing about any powered toothbrush that might change over the course of its lifetime is the battery life; over the years, rechargeable oral b braun toothbrush batteries tend to lose capacity. In the case of a toothbrush, this might mean it becomes less powerful or doesn’t hold a charge for as many days. The Pro 1000 is rated to last for seven days of brushing sessions on one charge; in our real-world testing, it lasted for 11.5 days on average, which is typical for a brush in this price range.
The core theme that seems to be most frequently stated is that using this head delivers a much gentler brushing experience than most others. And a noticeable difference with these models is that the stem on which brush heads are mounted has been redesigned. And due to this change, these models can only be used with iO-specific brush heads (the Ultimate Clean and Gentle Care). Greater Goods’s Sonic Electric Toothbrush is inexpensive compared to the Philips Sonicare 4100. And though heads are about half the price of those that accompany the Oral-B Pro 1000, we found ourselves needing to replace them in about half the time, virtually negating the long-term savings potential for this brush. The Philips Sonicare 2100, 5100, 5300, 6100, 6500, and 7500 all feature the same technology as the 4100 and 1100, with 31,000 bristle movements per minute.
An older version of the Pro 1000 had a grippier handle with ridges, which tended to accumulate dribbles and made the brush handle a bit more difficult to keep clean. A 2021 redesign of the Pro 1000 handle made it more streamlined, with fewer grooves to wipe clean. Designed to be as gentle on teeth and gums as they are effective at cleaning. It’s probably best used in conjunction with the Power Tip (discussed next). And as noted above, Oral-B even packages these two heads together as multi-packs. It was our impression that multi-packs of this head alone are somewhat difficult to find.
We think that the Gentle Care should only be considered by those people who can’t tolerate the brushing experience of the Ultimate Clean. However, when considering this option, keep in mind that “sensitive,” extra-soft-bristled heads typically don’t clean as effectively and their normal counterparts. The online reviews we’ve read seem to indicate that people are generally happy with this brush head choice.