The 10 Best Electric Toothbrushes For Braces
Special Honors
Bite Toothpaste Those looking for a vegan, cruelty-free, environmentally friendly replacement for traditional toothpaste should check out Bite. Their freshly-pressed tablets arrive in a glass jar and include nano-hydroxyapatite, a nontoxic fluoride alternative that has been proven to remineralize decaying enamel and help with sensitivity, two issues that can potentially come along with braces. They foam up extremely well with electric toothbrushes and are free of harsh chemicals, artificial flavoring, sulfates, and parabens. bitetoothpastebits.com
Goby Goby is a subscription service ideal for those who need help remembering to replace their brush heads regularly. Their toothbrushes come in multiple colors, sport a simple, clean design, and are equipped with a two-minute timer for quadrant brushing. The circular rotating heads are great at getting to the top, bottom, and in-between spaces necessary with braces. goby.co
Editor's Notes
October 14, 2020:
Our previous editor had it right when they mentioned the sheer variety of electric toothbrushes available on the market these days, and this is a category that sees constant innovation and new selections coming out. To that end, we ended up gutting about half this list, pruning away options that are no longer available or else supplanting items with more feature-rich or improved replacements.
You'll notice we swapped the Oral-B Pro 1000 Rechargeable with the Oral-B Smart 1500, which has taken the 1000 and tweaked it to make it even better. The 1500 has more cleaning modes, more oscillations and pulsations per minute, double the battery life, and more. We also said goodbye to the Waterpik Ortho Care WP-940 and YaFex 2-in-1, bringing on the Waterpik Professional SF-02 and ToiletTree Poseidon to fill the gaps they left. Flossing with braces can be a real pain, so water picks can be a godsend that offer a more convenient way to do a tedious task. Each also comes with a sonic toothbrush, which vibrates (rather than pulsates) to gently get beneath and in between wires without being too rough on your teeth.
A lot of kids end up getting braces in elementary or middle school, so we added two options with younger people in mind. The Triple Bristle Go is an appealing model that gets the job done more quickly than others, and uses an interesting brush head configuration that can feel awkward at first, but gets easier with time. It fully envelopes your teeth from every angle, which is handy for teens who are in a rush or not too concerned with being thorough. There's also the Oral-B Junior for kids as young as six. This way you can introduce them to an electric toothbrush at a younger age before they get their dental work done.
Anyone with braces will want to favor electric over manual, as they are vastly more effective. We prioritized items here that give users plenty of brushing options, great battery life, thoughtfully-designed heads, and bristles to get around dental work and clean crevices and gums.
January 24, 2019:
It used to be a simple matter to choose a toothbrush: do you want soft, medium, or hard bristles? Now there is a bewildering array of options to choose from. We looked for models that have features specifically for braces, but also included some that are good quality even if they don't have such features.