Celebrating Oral Health Month with the Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000 with SmartGuide Electric Toothbrush

This is going to gross some of you out: for the better part of my life, I’ve brushed my teeth once a day and flossed maybe half a dozen times a year.

My dentist calls them “Magic Teeth” because after years of deplorable oral hygiene, I have one very tiny cavity that didn’t even require freezing to fill.

I’m not sure what my problem is. It’s not that I don’t enjoy that smooth feeling as my tongue sweeps across my top row of teeth after a good brushing. I do – really.

Being busy is probably a terrible excuse, but I’ve got a full life and from the minute I wake up, my brain goes into overdrive, tasking my day almost obsessively. Some days, it’s noon before I realize that I haven’t washed my face, brushed my hair or teeth. At least my kids leave the house clean, fed and well-dressed. (Someone should.)

I’m trying to pass along better habits to my kids. I cleaned their gums before they had teeth, and as soon as they were each co-ordinated enough to hold a toothbrush, we started teaching them how to do it. We will continue to do the bulk of the brushing for them until they’re at least six years old, and then closely monitor them until age eight, which is what most dentists recommend.

At our P&G Mom kick-off event, which was one part social function to one part conference, I questioned the dentist about the necessity of using toothpaste. You see, I’ve read (more than once) that you really don’t need toothpaste to effectively clean your teeth. She paused for a moment, and admitted that about 30 per cent of the population brushes well enough to omit the use of toothpaste.

But where does that leave the rest of us?

I suppose we better improve our brushing skills and grab some Crest.

This same dentist went on to tell us how an electric toothbrush can really up our tooth game, and something like 91 per cent of dentists recommend using one. (Which obviously begs the question: then why the hell do they keep giving us manual toothbrushes at the end of every visit?)

At the end of her presentation, she told us that we would each receive an Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000 electric toothbrush. Many oohs and ahhs flooded the room. I didn’t know at the time that this was the toothbrush of all toothbrushes.

The K Man using his “favourite toothbrush ever” – the Oral-B Pro-Health For Me Vitality electric toothbrush.

THE GOOD

Mark my words: the first time you brush with the Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000, you’re going to be WOWed. Now, don’t take this from yours truly – the non-brusher. Take it from my husband who is religious about toothbrushing. Big B said he’d never felt cleaner teeth. He immediately tossed his toothbrush and all but peed on this one to stake his claim.

It’s even easy for a four year old to operate; he has no problem turning the SmartSeries 5000 on and off and brushing solo. Although, The K Man prefers the idea of having a toothbrush that just belongs to him (enter the Oral-B Pro-Health For Me Vitality electric toothbrush – we decided to ignore the 8+ age reco and it’s fantastic for little kids).

You can brush your teeth in the shower. It’s waterproof. I often brush my teeth in the shower while my conditioner is setting, so I like this feature.

There’s room for four brush heads on the SmartSeries 5000’s base unit. So if you’re a family of four (with kids older than three – we’ll get to that…), you could do away with everyone’s manual toothbrush and make this a family affair. You each just choose different-coloured “rings” for your brush heads so you know which one belongs to whom. If you all have to rush to get out of the house at the same time each morning, this arrangement might take some serious co-ordination.

The Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000 kit: brush, brush head, recharging station, timer and travel case.

The timer. We have to talk about the timer, people. The Oral-B SmartGuide is a wireless clock/timer combo that will become your toothbrushing guru. Dentists say you need to brush for two minutes to ensure you’ve done a good job. I promise you – if you’re not using a timer, it’s pretty unlikely that you’re brushing for two whole minutes. Because two whole minutes is a long damn time when you’re doing something like brushing your teeth. Try it yourself. Get out your iPhone or laptop, use a timer app and start brushing; don’t look at the timer and brush as you normally would. When you’re done, check your timer. My guess is that you’ve maxed out around the one-minute mark (if that). The coolest part, perhaps, is that the brush alerts you at every 30-second interval, so you can do your pearly whites from top to bottom and front and back evenly.

There’s a pressure alarm. When I mentioned earlier that Big B’s really into his oral hygiene routine, I failed to describe what his toothbrushes usually look like about a month in to use: hammerheads. The poor, sad bristles in the middle completely obliterated. Too. Much. Pressure. Well, with the Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000, if you brush too hard, there’s a bright red light that warns you to ease up; if you don’t pay attention, the brush head grinds to a halt.

It’s fully rechargeable. No batteries needed. And the charge lasts a long time.

I really, really love the brush head that came with the SmartSeries 5000 kit. The Oral-B FlossAction rocks. We bought some less-fancy Oral-B brush heads at Costco but they’re not in the same league.

A travel carry case!

Every Oral-B Professional Series toothbrush has a 60-day money-back guarantee and two-year repair and replacement warranty. They’re obviously fairly confident.

There are apparently five settings on the brush (Daily Clean, Sensitive, Whitening, Massage, Deep Clean). I have honestly not bothered to try anything but the Daily Clean. If it ain’t broke…

During Oral Health Month, pledge to get a more confident smile by brushing, flossing and rinsing with Crest and Oral-B products for 30 days. If you do, P&G will donate $1 to the awesome charity Dress for Success – totalling up to $20,000!

I really do get excited now to brush my teeth. Sometimes even twice a day.

THE GAFFE

Oral-B FlossAction replacement brush heads do not come cheap. I think I paid around $20 for three. That’s almost $7 per brush, which is double what I’d normally spend on a manual toothbrush. I’m not replacing them every three months as recommended.

When I asked P&G if there was an age recommendation for the Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000 with SmartGuide, I was told age three. But why? My kids have used Oral-B electric toothbrushes for kids for years. Is it about the speed or the brush head? Seems to me, Oral-B could create a toddler setting and we could just pop on one of the sensitive brush heads.

The battery cover on the timer is a real SOB to get off. We read and re-read the instructions, and after I tried for 10 minutes, I gave up. Big B – with his added strength and patience – managed to dislodge it, but not without a bit of a fight. I saw many of the P&G Moms complaining about the battery cover, so I know it wasn’t just me. Room for improvement here.

If you’re not going to make this into a family brushing centre, the SmartSeries 5000 is pricey at $175+. However, if you share this among four family members, $43.75 for what is overall a truly outstanding electric toothbrush is pretty reasonable.

THE GEARS

4/5

So…where can you buy it?

• Walmart
• Amazon.ca
• Well.ca

CONTEST

While this contest isn’t for the Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000 with SmartGuide Electric Toothbrush, you do have the opportunity to win one of two really amazing electric toothbrush prize packs (enter here):

1. Valued at $50, the first prize pack is perfect for smaller hands and includes the Oral-B CrossAction Pro-Health Toothbrush, Oral-B Glide floss, plus The K Man’s favourite, the Oral-B Pro-Health for Me Vitality electric toothbrush.
2. Valued at $110, the second prize is an Oral-B Professional Deep Sweep Triaction 5000.

DISCLAIMER: I’m a P&G Mom and get access to products and special events. All opinions expressed on this blog are mine. All mine. By entering the contest you are accepting that if you win your contact information will be shared with a P&G PR agency for the purpose of mailing your prize. This giveaway may appear on other blogs as part of the #PGmom program; however, to be fair, you can only win once per giveaway. If your name is chosen more than once, another winner will be selected.