Who’s Your Gums’ Best Friend? Philips Sonicare FlexCare Plus Electric Toothbrush Review

I love my teeth. I love my gums, too, because they hold my teeth. I don’t want to lose my teeth. None of the people I know does, actually. There was a time when I almost had the feeling that I was brushing my teeth with a blade, that’s how bad my gums were bleeding. Gum recession is serious disease. As far as I understood from my dentist, it is also irreversible. All you can do is stop the damage as soon as you can, then keep it under control.

One way to keep gum recession under control is correct brushing. This means you need to brush at least three minutes. I don’t believe many people respect that, even if they think they do. Time yourself when brushing, then tell me what you’ve got. I bet it will be about 1-2 minutes. This is where electric toothbrushes come into picture: if you use an electric toothbrush, two minutes are enough. Besides, it can reach areas that a normal toothbrush usually can’t.

How to choose the best electric toothbrush

Here are a few criteria I used for choosing my next toothbrush:

• Rechargeable toothbrushes are better than the ones that run on batteries. I used to have a cheap electric toothbrush, which used regular AA batteries. Those batteries used to run out of power by midnight, when I wanted to brush my teeth before going to bed. I never had any spares handy. If you’ve been in this situation, you know an electric toothbrush without electricity is not effective at all. So believe me, you want it to be rechargeable.
• Modern toothbrushes have an UV brush head sanitizer. This is useful for killing bacteria that hide in the brush. Bacteria cause gingivitis, gum recession and periodontal disease. This is why doctors recommend changing the toothbrush every month, even if it’s still good. With the UV-light sanitizer, you can safely use a head for a longer period of time.
• If you can, get a toothbrush with a timer. There are some on the market. The Philips Sonicare FlexCare Plus is one of them. This is not essential, because you can always use an hourglass or your mobile phone timer. Anyway, it’s a nice-to-have feature.
• Sonic toothbrushes are very effective in removing plaque. They vibrate at about 30,000 strokes per minute and they generate dynamic waves which act upon the plaque, dislocating it even from hard to reach places.

Thinking of all these, I have a few toothbrushes on my shortlist. Philips Sonicare FlexCare Plus is top of the list. It has so many positive reviews that I’m sure it must be very good.

What I like about the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Plus HX6972/10 Rechargeable Toothbrush

Click on the image to see the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Plus electric toothbrush on Amazon

• FlexCare + has five working modes: Clean, Sensitive, Massage, Refresh and Gum Care. The Gum Care mode is a novelty compared to the older FlexCare model. It has a routine that goes 30 seconds for each quad, plus four 15 second sequences for problem areas.
• The Sonic technology is more effective in removing plaque than vibrations of cheap electric toothbrushes. That’s because Philips Sonicare FlexCare vibrates with 31,000 brush strokes per minute. Because of this high frequency, it has a dynamic action which makes it effective even from a distance, therefore it cleans even in hard to reach places such as back teeth and periodontal pockets.
• The power of ultrasounds helps removing tea and coffee stains, so teeth will become whiter after a while. If I think that ultrasounds are used for breaking apart kidney stones, I tend to believe this.
• The UV sanitizer is great, if we are to believe scientists. I believe them. I noticed that my hairdresser also uses an UV sanitizer for disinfecting her tools. I haven’t noticed any difference (as you can probably imagine), but it’s a nice feeling to see that device and know that I’m getting a germ-free haircut.
• The contoured head is designed to remove the plaque along the gum line. This leads to a decrease in gum bleeding and helps prevent gum recession.
• The battery life is enough for about one week of 3 times per day brushing. That’s great, because the dock is not that small. My bathroom is, though, so there’s no room for the dock and I don’t have a power plug in the bathroom anyway.
• The heads have bands of different colors. This is great if you want to share the toothbrush with other members of the family. I’m not a fan of sharing such personal hygiene items, but since this is only about sharing the handle, I suppose it’s fine.
• The travel kit included with the toothbrush is very handy. It includes a hard storage case for the brush and charger unit.

The Philips Sonicare FlexCare Plus HX6972/10 Rechargeable Toothbrush pack contains:

• 1 toothbrush
• 2 ProResults brush heads
• 2 hygienic travel caps
• 1 charging unit with UV brush sanitizer
• 1 travel charger
• 1 hard travel case