Colgate ProClinical C600 Electric Toothbrush review

I've been brushing my teeth with a manual toothbrush for about the past 39 years and, to be quite honest, I've never really bought into all the recent hype about electric toothbrushes. I seem to have really clean teeth anyway - my dentist is always surprised at the lack of plaque, maybe because I don't smoke or drink coffee ?! - so I've never really felt the need to switch over to an electric one, despite seeing all the adverts going on about how they get your teeth much cleaner than with manual brushing.

I couldn't help feeling excited when I was invited on a Bzz campaign to try out Colgate's new ProClinical C600 Electric Toothbrush though. Now I'd get to find out if I'd been missing out on something really good for all those years ! Who knows? Maybe I'd never go back to brushing my teeth by hand ever again ! The write-up makes it all sound very exciting too, mentioning things like "a sonic wave cleaning action" - ooooh it sounds nearly as exciting as Dr Who's sonic screwdriver !!

My first impression was wow, that's a HUGE box for a toothbrush ! It's almost as big as a shoebox ! Not only that but it comes in a rigid cardboard box with plastic inserts, inside another cardboard sleeve, so this seems like a huge amount of excess packaging to me - not good news for the planet, both for wasting resources in the first place and filling up landfill unnecessarily.

In the box you get a toothbrush handle with an on-off switch, "mode" button and "charge" light (which does look incredibly like Dr Who's sonic toothbrush actually !), a brush attachment (just one, I was expecting a couple), a storage case, an instruction manual and a charger with a 2-pin shaver plug. I tentatively pushed the on-off button, not expecting anything to happen because I hadn't charged it, then fell on the floor laughing when it started buzzing and vibrating and sounding very rude (or maybe that's just my mind - I'll get accused of reading erotic fiction again in a minute !!!)

Having seen that I could use it straight away without charging it (definitely a huge bonus, as you may well need to buy a type C plug adapter to be able to use it), I headed off to the bathroom for a play. I started off on the first setting and had a nice gentle brush then pushed the "mode" button and it suddenly went really high-powered. It felt just like being at the dentist's being given a really deep clean - I know my mum would hate it because you get that "buzzing in your teeth" feeling that you get when your dentist is doing her stuff getting rid of plaque ! - but it does give you amazingly clean teeth, even after just one brush. You get that "straight out of the dentist's" feeling when you can't stop running your tongue over your teeth because they feel so smooth and clean !

I looked through the instruction booklet after using it (I know, I probably should have done it before !) and learned that it has has three distinct brushing modes — sensitive side-to-side strokes for teeth, mid-speed massaging strokes for the gumline, and fast up-down strokes for molars — to provide superior cleaning for teeth and care for gums. It also has a clever triple clean brush with three types of bristles - spiral bristles to help remove surface stains, inner bristles to remove plaque from teeth surfaces and tapered outer bristles to clean deep along the gum line.

I couldn't really understand what all the fuss was about for electric toothbrushes - after all, generations of people have been using manual brushes quite successfully - but I must admit to being a total convert since trying out the C600. It's one of those things that you have to try to believe just how clean your teeth feel afterwards. It is an expensive piece of kit and I'm not sure I'd have been able to justify the expense but I can vouch for the fact that it is incredibly efficient.

star rating : 4.5/5

RRP : £97.49

for more information : http://www.colgate.co.uk/app/ColgateOralCare/ElectricToothbrush/ProClinical/UK/EN/Products/C600.cwsp

Disclosure : As a BzzAgent, I receive products for free, as well as samples and/or money-off vouchers to pass on to my friends, in order to help spread the word and give my honest impressions of the products.

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