Should I choose an electric or manual toothbrush?

Toothbrush manufacturers and designers continue to be more and more ingenious in offering us more and more sophisticated and effective models. In recent years, electric toothbrushes have been added to the shelves. These are increasingly recommended by dentists, especially in certain situations.

So should you choose an electric toothbrush? Or is it better to stick with the old manual toothbrush? Are we for or against the electric toothbrush? Nutrident helps you to make the best choice.

There are a number of criteria for choosing a toothbrush that best suits your needs and meets all your expectations.

The brushing technique

No matter what kind of toothbrush you have and how sophisticated it is, if you don't use it the right way, brushing will not be effective. Good technique is therefore essential, and it is especially important if you use a manual toothbrush.

On the other hand, brushing with an electric model does not require any particular technique, you just have to go from one tooth to the other and it will do the work for you. It has even been proven in clinical studies that brushing with an electric toothbrush removes more plaque than manual brushing.

Therefore, we advise you to choose an electric toothbrush if you do not master the brushing technique or if you have a condition that prevents you from brushing properly (tremors, trauma, muscle weakness…). However, it is important to respect the brushing time, even with an electric toothbrush, which is at least 2 minutes. On the contrary, if you have the right technique, a manual toothbrush will do the trick.

Toothbrush autonomy

Even if the autonomy of electric toothbrushes is getting longer and longer, it will never reach that of a manual toothbrush since it will never let you down while brushing.

So if you're an electric toothbrush user, we recommend that you always have a manual toothbrush as a backup. That way, you'll never skip a brush because of a dead battery.

The cost: a significant criterion…

A classic manual toothbrush of fairly good quality costs between 3 and 5 €. Knowing that it is recommended to change it every 3 months, which is equivalent to 4 toothbrushes per year, the annual budget is from 12 to 20 € .

The prices of electric toothbrushes are extremely variable, ranging from 20 to 200 €. Added to this is the cost of the brushes which must be replaced, as with the manual models, 4 times a year, at a cost of 10 € per pair of brushes.

Not to mention the cost of the batteries, if you choose a battery-powered model rather than a rechargeable one. The annual budget for an electric toothbrush is therefore 100 € on average.

It is then preferable to opt for a manual toothbrush if you are on a tight budget, so as not to deprive yourself of effective brushing because of the non-replacement of brushes or batteries.

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