The Water Flosser That Will Impress Even Your Dentist
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SHOP $79, amazon.com
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Many of us fear dentists, whether it’s from a childhood trauma or from Steve Martin’s performance as Orin, the sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors who enjoys performing slow and painful root canals on his patients (not to mention abusing laughing gas in a Lynchian type of way). If you want to take good care of those chompers and avoid the whirr and buzz of those medieval torture devices—I mean, dental devices—then The Philips Sonicare Power Flosser 3000 is a good way to start. With its simple and portable design, it’s like your own personal dental cleaning that you can toss in a dopp kit and take with you anywhere.
Who invented flossing, anyway? Dragging a little string between each tooth as it pulls out pieces of mushed food that you have to wipe off between every floss? No thanks. Not to mention when the floss gets all wet from your spit and starts disintegrating between your slippery fingers. Gross. It’s primitive at best, and honestly, difficult at worst. And people who floss in public? Don't get me started on this jail-worthy offense.
Thankfully, we've got genius engineers and doctors who've come up with the idea for a water flosser. We live in a society where cars can drive themselves, and drones can drop off Hot Cheetos to your front door, and you’re telling me our best way to clean up teeth is still to stick string up in our gums? I refuse to accept that. And after trying out this electric water flosser, I can gladly say that I’ll never wrap a piece of floss around my fingers again.
SHOP $79, amazon.com
Built Like a Machine, Flosses Like a Dream.
The Philips Sonicare Cordless Power Flosser 3000 sounds like the name for a terminator that could pressure wash you into oblivion. But the device comes in a small, neat, and simple package to unbox. I have it in the mint green colorway, although it's also available in black and white for those feeling less adventurous. It comes with the brand's signature technology, the Quad Stream nozzle, and the regular single stream tip. The Quad Stream spreads the water spray out so that it covers more of your tooth and gums while you floss. The flosser also comes the attachable 250ml water reservoir, enough water to sustain a 60 second floss session. But, before you get ahead of ourself and floss right out the box, you have to charge the Power Flosser. When I got mine, I plugged that bad boy in and waited shortly until it was fully charged and ready to go—dirty teeth ready.
SHOP $79, amazon.com
The Trifecta of Flossing— Comfort, Ease, and Efficiency.
That night, something magical happened. I actually looked forward to flossing, instead of dreading it like one would dread an actual dentist appointment. After you scrub your pearly whites clean, just load up the reservoir with water up to the max fill line and twist it back into place to the head piece. Then, click the regular one stream nozzle into place. There are two options for the type of cleaning you are in the mood for— clean and deep clean. Clean offers a steady and precise stream of water pressure, while deep clean uses waves of pressure to get a more thorough experience. The flosser also has three levels of water stream power (I decided to start off easy and begin at level one and regular clean).
The precise and powerful stream of water surprised me at first, and I ended up spraying myself in the face a couple times accidentally before I got the hang of holding the device in my mouth. There was no doubt the force of the Power Flosser would remove debris, after all, when it hit me in the face, it felt like someone turned a small but very strong hose on me.
SHOP $79, amazon.com
An Essential Hygiene Tool You'll Become Reliant On.
After I figured out the choreography of moving the nozzle around my teeth, I found the water flossing process to be quite pleasant. It's like I get a spa treatment for every canine and molar. My little ivories have never been so pampered. I imagine that every tooth gets the kind of clean that a muddy truck would get going through a carwash. The spray process is so easy, I could do it blindfolded. The flosser is equipped with a pause feature between 15 seconds of uninterrupted spray to alert you to move to a different quadrant of your mouth. It's like there's a little robot buddy inside the water flosser giving me a gentle nudge to remind me not to over-wash my teeth (if that’s even possible). And the results are just as impressive. After just one roundtrip around my teeth with the flosser, I examined them in the mirror. I scratched along the surfaces and cracks between my incisors, and was happy to find that there wasn't any debris or plaque under my nails. The experiment was a success! My teeth were so clean, you could serve tea to the King of England on them.
I have gotten so used to flossing with it that I wish I could do it after every meal, snack, or bite. I've even started to experiment with the different modes, trying out deep clean, and flossing on every level of power. My favorite mode is deep clean on level one, which provided enough pressure to get the gunk out and a pulsing spray that feels like it hit every millimeter.
I finally bid goodbye to my roll of floss. I’ll never have to slide a slobbery wet piece of synthetic wax between my precious fangs again.
SHOP $79, amazon.com
Photography by Joe Lingeman. Prop styling by Andrea Bonin.
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