I don’t do a lot of product reviews, but I make exceptions to this if 1) a product is amazingly good and I can no longer live without it, or 2) a product is so horrible I have to make public mockery of it. I’m happy to say that Philips new Sonicare for kids fits in the former category; this is one amazing toothbrush.

Our Sonicare sales rep recently came into our office and introduced us to Sonicare’s new adult and child electric toothbrushes. I like my adult Sonicare and so I purchased two of the child brushes to give to my kids for Christmas. For the most part I am of the opinion that kids don’t brush well and need a lot of parental touch-up work to complete their daily hygiene in the morning and at night, and in my house that task naturally falls to the guy who is a dentist by profession; I’m consider myself a pretty good touch-up brusher. I figured that if these brushes reduced my nightly touch-up time a bit, then they would be well worth the price. Having seen dozens of toothbrushes for children, I was not expecting anything amazing though.

The brush far exceeded my expectations. In spite of what I think is a pretty good brushing job for a kid, my daughter has some teeth that are particularly difficult to clean. She builds up plaque very quickly and it’s an extremely sticky, tenacious variety of plaque that only comes off well with professional instruments like the hygienist’s rubber cup or a metal scaling instrument. I’ve spent five full minutes some nights just trying to get all of the sticky plaque off of her two front teeth. I’ve tried different pastes, different techniques, and different brushes for her, including a competitor’s electric toothbrush, and nothing has helped get her teeth clean.

Enter the Sonicare for kids. I’ll cut right to the chase and admit that even a skeptic like me thinks this thing is amazing. It cuts through my daughter’s sticky plaque in seconds and I’ve never seen her teeth cleaner, unless she’s just been with my hygienists. I’m sold on the brush’s technology alone, but as an added bonus it has Bluetooth functionality that connects to an iPhone app. At first I thought this was gimmicky, but then when my 4 year-old boy started begging me to give him my iPhone so he could play the “brushing game” I took a second look. The iPhone app basically shows a little pet monster brushing their teeth while the kids mimic the brushing movements in their own mouth. Over the course of two minutes, the game makes them brush all the nooks and crannies in the mouth and then gives the pet monster a prize for doing well. Yes, I know it sounds dumb, but my 4 and 8 year-olds love the app and in a sneaky way, it teaches them proper brushing technique and presumably builds good habits. Anything that gets the job done as well as this does, dumb or not, is fine by me.

I’ll never go back to a manual brush for my kids. If you live in the Provo or Orem area and you’re looking for some help in keeping your kids clean and cavity-free, come visit our office and let’s have a chat. If you’re interested in purchasing a Sonicare brush, we can get you a nice discount off of retail price as well. Visit the Sonicare website to check out this product:

http://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/HX6321_02/sonicare-for-kids-sonic-electric-toothbrush#m=USP0

-Nicolas K. Young, DMD

(Disclaimer: we don’t get any kickbacks for promoting Sonicare products. Philips and many other companies give us special dental professional pricing on their stuff, but we get nothing for selling one brand over another. This is simply the best child toothbrush I’ve ever seen so I want to share the news.)