My teeth have been a sore point recently, both metaphorically and actually, so when Colgate offered me a Colgate pro clinical A1500 to review, I said yes without too many reservations. I have a few particular issues with my teeth and I’m now going to go into what most of you may consider far too much detail…
On the top left side, about two teeth back from the canine, I have a rather large gap between teeth. It’s large enough for a green interdental brush to fit easily and is a cause of discomfort a lot of the time. On the other side, I have two gold crowns which were the legacy of a fat kid assaulting me at school with a basketball. He got a week off school, I got a lot of dentistry. Life’s unfair at times, especially as I tend to suffer from gum problems around these two crowns.
So on to the Colgate pro clinical A1500 then. This is my second foray into the world of electric toothbrushes but the two are worlds apart. A few years ago a spent about a tenner on a disposable electric toothbrush that’s spent most of it’s life sitting in the toothbrush jar. A month or so ago it started sporadically buzzing and we couldn’t work out for the life of us where the noise was coming from. Fortunately before we started pulling tiles off and checking plumbing and pumps, we spotted the toothbrush at it! The Colgate pro clinical A1500 is a million miles away from this though, not least in it’s retail price of £164.99. But you get a lot of sophistication for your money.
Before you even start brushing your teeth, you’re treated to a flashy connection free charger. The brush just plops into a hole on the charger and is then wirelessly charged (the charge is obviously wired though, it plugs into the mains). You do need to supply your own two pin to normal plug adapter if you don’t have a shaving outlet in the bathroom though, and at this price I thought the omission of one in the box was a little disappointing.
Once you’ve charged it up and are ready to go though, the Colgate pro clinical A1500 is a bit of a high tech revelation though. The unit itself (and to a degree the removable heads) feels incredibly solid. This is one sturdy unit and after a couple of weeks hard use, it’s still pristine. It has sensors that adjust the speed of the brush when you’re cleaning your gums, which is handy given my manky gums around my crowns. The general brushing feels pretty thorough, but the interdental action via a special head is awesome. I’ve never found my huge gap as well excavated, or the other interdental gaps cleaned so thoroughly outside of the hygienist And at £40 a pop at the hygienist, it’s suddenly not that expensive.
There are lots of other features, not least a 2 minute timer that lets you know when you’ve reached the dentist approved amount of tooth cleaning time, and also a sonic wave thingy, that blasts your teeth with sonic stuff. So the next time you use a toothbrush, have a think and consider whether it’s time to go high tech. Your teeth will approve, like mine have.