Nylon or silicone: who cares most for your teeth?

Good question, especially at a time when dozens of new toothbrushes promising brushing in just a few seconds are flooding a market that heavily relies on customer trust. 

During the 4 years that made up the development of Y-Brush, we tested many different techniques to brush your teeth. The goal was to find the most effective and fastest way possible.                                              

How to navigate all these new offers? Between those that propose a scientific approach and those that just rely on promises that, obviously, won’t be kept.   

HAS ANYONE TRIED TO COMPARE THE TWO?  

On our side, we conducted many in vitro and in vivo efficiency tests.
We show you a test with our 2016 prototype designed with silicone bristles, as well as one with the current and final version of Y-Brush.

We used the following protocol:

• Rinse your mouth with water

• Take a GUM Red Cote (a colored solution applied to the teeth to reveal dental plaque) and chew for 30 seconds

• Spit out the residue and rinse your mouth with water

• The dental plaque is visible on the teeth (in red)

• Brush your teeth with the old prototype/Y-Brush (we did not use dental floss)

• Spit, then rinse your mouth

• Showing you the results

   

And here’s what it looks like:

Before brushing with the 2016 model designed with silicone bristles

After brushing with the silicone

As you can see, the silicone bristles did remove some plaque, but they also left a lot behind. Look at what happens after 3 days of brushing morning and night with a silicone model.

This result was far from acceptable for us. We had to go back to our research and find out how to make Y-Brush the best mass-market toothbrush.

Let's see what's happening on the Y-Brush side:

Before brushing your teeth in 10 seconds with Y-Brush  

After 10 seconds of brushing with the Y-Brush toothbrush

Much better, isn’t it?
To be honest, we’re quite proud of the results achieved with Y-Brush. So why such a big difference in effectiveness between these two technologies? 

A SIZE PROBLEM

The significant differences observed between nylon and silicone stem from a tangible reality.

Have you ever seen a fox try to enter a rabbit’s burrow? Maybe you remember the cartoon where Tom the cat endlessly tries to get into Jerry the mouse’s house?

We know how it goes: they struggle and only the tip gets in.

Here, it’s a similar principle:
Y-Brush uses nylon bristles less than 0.1 millimeters wide. These allow reaching the deepest and most difficult areas to access (such as the interdental spaces of premolars, for example).
The vast majority of its competitors use silicone bristles wider than 1.5 millimeters. Without a doubt, we can state the following: these bristles do not remove dental plaque deeply.

We’ll show you this with a diagram:

MATERIALS WITH VERY DIFFERENT PROPERTIES

It’s no coincidence that nylon bristles have always been recommended for removing dental plaque.

Silicone bristles do have some notable advantages: inexpensive and very easy to manufacture (a mold with holes: no technical difficulty in production).

However, although some distributors have tried to validate its usefulness, no scientific article has ever proven the effectiveness of silicone.

From a physical standpoint, it’s very simple: nylon has an abrasive effect while silicone only massages the teeth. That’s why silicone, besides not being able to reach certain areas that need cleaning, is also ineffective on those that are easily accessible.

AN INEFFECTIVENESS THAT CAN BE FELT

The first people to receive the Amabrush product (a toothbrush designed with silicone bristles, supposed to brush teeth in 10 seconds) organized themselves to share their experiences with this brush. For this, one of their customers created an online document and shared it with everyone who had purchased the brush – via a Facebook group. Their dissatisfaction is quite clear: the ratings given to this model are all between 1 and 2 out of 10, the first reviews and tests do not recommend Amabrush, explain that this brush does not clean teeth, and express the desire to be refunded.

 One of their Austrian customers conducted a test similar to the one we carried out to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of Amabrush and silicone:

Unfortunately, we expect a flood of disappointments regarding the two products from the V-White brand: X-Toothbrush and Hi Toothbrush, as well as the uFunbrush toothbrush designed for children.

LET’S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE POSITIVE AND REASSURING 

Fortunately, we use nylon and more than 3000 of you have already ordered Y-Brush! To celebrate, we’re giving you €10 off your next order with the code DEJA3000. 

And don’t forget…

Nylon is the only material that truly takes care of your teeth!