Electric toothbrushes. They really are superior to regular old brushes, but they tend to break down after less than a year and aren’t exactly cheap. Ironically, the last time mine broke I replaced it with the cheapest one and it’s lasted longer than the ones before it. Go figure!
I’ve had two electric toothbrushes in my life. The first one lasted for maybe 10 years. The breaking point was plastic degradation which occluded the internal electronics and destroyed de button to turn it on.
I think could have been repaired with the right materials. The repairability of the brand I buy is pretty good.
For anyone curious the brand is:
Tap for spoiler
Oral b
The electric toothbrushes are nice but the head replacements are too expensive and I’ve not find a suitable offbrand replacement. So I end up boiling the toothbrush heads several times to extend their lifetime.
So, I have never thought about this before but I would think the lifetime of a toothbrush head is based more on mechanical stress on the bristles and not bacterial growth.
Which I assume you try to address by boiling them. I remember studies made on boiling dishwashing sponges and unless I remember wrong boiling them regularly actually lead to more bacterial growth over time. Don’t remember thr explanation and maybe funded by “big sponge”.
That said I always use mine at least 2 months longer but am not boiling them.
My toothbrush head actually starts developing black patches overtime of what I asume is my own bacteria setting in in the brush. Mostly in cavities hard to reach for a normal cleaning.
For me boiling easily removes those dark patches. It is true that they come back faster than the time they took to appear the first time. Put it peaces my mind and I’m still alive after all this time.
Funnily enough I stopped using washing sponges in the shower and start washing myself only with my hand because someone told me that sponges were bacterial paradise. And to be true I found out that I really don’t need a sponge to clean myself.
Electric toothbrushes. They really are superior to regular old brushes, but they tend to break down after less than a year and aren’t exactly cheap. Ironically, the last time mine broke I replaced it with the cheapest one and it’s lasted longer than the ones before it. Go figure!
What do you do for them to break so soon?
I’ve had two electric toothbrushes in my life. The first one lasted for maybe 10 years. The breaking point was plastic degradation which occluded the internal electronics and destroyed de button to turn it on.
I think could have been repaired with the right materials. The repairability of the brand I buy is pretty good.
For anyone curious the brand is:
Tap for spoiler
Oral b
The electric toothbrushes are nice but the head replacements are too expensive and I’ve not find a suitable offbrand replacement. So I end up boiling the toothbrush heads several times to extend their lifetime.
That spoiler thing? Fantastic. I chuckled, anyway.
So, I have never thought about this before but I would think the lifetime of a toothbrush head is based more on mechanical stress on the bristles and not bacterial growth.
Which I assume you try to address by boiling them. I remember studies made on boiling dishwashing sponges and unless I remember wrong boiling them regularly actually lead to more bacterial growth over time. Don’t remember thr explanation and maybe funded by “big sponge”.
That said I always use mine at least 2 months longer but am not boiling them.
“Big sponge” have us all in their pocket.
My toothbrush head actually starts developing black patches overtime of what I asume is my own bacteria setting in in the brush. Mostly in cavities hard to reach for a normal cleaning.
For me boiling easily removes those dark patches. It is true that they come back faster than the time they took to appear the first time. Put it peaces my mind and I’m still alive after all this time.
Funnily enough I stopped using washing sponges in the shower and start washing myself only with my hand because someone told me that sponges were bacterial paradise. And to be true I found out that I really don’t need a sponge to clean myself.
OK. Black patches are… concerning, then I get why you do this.
They break after a year? I’ve had mine for a decade now…
Judging from responses in here, I got unlucky.