Chapters
Introduction
[00:00:05]Eon Engelbrecht opens the episode with Dr Clifford Yudelman to explore one of the most googled questions in oral care—electric vs manual toothbrushes.
Does Brush Choice Still Matter?
[01:20 – 02:33]Dr Yudelman explains that proper brush choice still significantly impacts plaque control and cavity prevention, with soft, high-density bristles offering superior results.
Are Manual Brushes Still Effective?
[02:34 – 03:57]Manual brushes can work if soft and used correctly, but cheap bristles fray quickly and most users brush too briefly—making technique critical.
Who Needs Extra-Soft Bristles?
[03:57 – 05:16]Extra-soft brushes are ideal for people with gum recession, dry mouth, sensitivity, or mixed dentition. Hard bristles aggravate notches and gum damage.
How Electric Brushes Outperform Manuals
[05:24 – 07:18]Electric brushes offer superior motion, timers, and pressure sensors that promote consistent, gentle brushing—like “power steering” for your gums.
Budget Electric Brushes: Worth It?
[07:18 – 08:19]Entry-level electrics are a step up from manuals but lack features like pressure sensors and replaceable heads, making them a temporary solution.
Rotary vs Sonic Heads
[08:28 – 10:17]Rotary brushes remove more plaque; sonics improve gum health. Pick based on comfort and usage preference. Consistency matters more than the type.
Hard Bristles and Enamel Damage
[10:25 – 11:37]Hard bristles and whitening pastes act like plastic razors, cutting at the gum line and causing long-term enamel damage. Softness is key.
Do Smart Features Really Help?
[11:50 – 13:25]Yes. Timers and smart apps improve technique and ensure full coverage. AI brushes can even give voice feedback and build better habits in weeks.
Are AI Brushes the Future?
[13:42 – 14:32]Yes. These brushes show a 20–30% improvement in plaque scores, with falling prices making them increasingly accessible for everyday use.
Matching Budget and Habits
[14:41 – 16:36]Dr Yudelman recommends brush types based on budget: from soft manuals under R100 to premium electrics with app feedback for high-risk or tech-loving users.
Transcript
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (0:05 – 1:09)
Welcome back to Save Your Money, Save Your Teeth. It’s time again for the go-to podcast where curiosity meets dentistry and I’m Eon and as always joined by Dr Clifford Yudelman from OptiSmile and last time we busted some fluoride toothpaste myths and today we’re polishing off that topic with one of the most googled questions in oral care. Electric versus manual toothbrushes.
Which one really keeps the plug at bay without draining your wallet? Dr Clifford Yudelman of OptiSmile is here to unpack soft versus extra soft bristles, also budget electrics versus premium smart brushes and why technique still trumps tech. So park that brush for the next 20 minutes or so, pop in your earbuds and let’s find out where your hard-earned cash or rent should go for a healthy and a healthier, brighter smile.
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](1:10 – 1:16)
Dr Udelman, welcome back. Thank you, thanks for that great intro. I think next week I should interview you.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (1:20 – 1:34)
Oh, that’s funny. Okay, so today electric versus manual toothbrushes. I want to start by asking you, does brush choice still change plug control and cavity risk in 2025?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](1:35 – 2:33)
Most definitely. So in a nutshell, you know, studies have shown up to two times better plug removal with the correct brush for the user. Horse bristles and heavy pressure is a no-no.
They just scrape away enamel and they can even leave plaque at the gum line, which is a double whammy. The softer high-density or micro tapered bristles, which you’re generally going to pay more for, hug the tooth and they slip under the gum edge and you get better plaque control, fewer cavities. And in the end, you actually spend less at the dentist.
So if you weigh up the cost of one or two cavities, fillings versus a whole year supply of better quality, softer bristle toothbrushes or electric toothbrush, I think you’ll find that it’s better to use a good brush and avoid problems.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (2:34 – 2:39)
And these ordinary pharmacy manual brushes, are they still good enough?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](2:39 – 3:57)
You know, they can be if the bristles are soft and your technique is spot on, but that’s a big if. If you’re going for the really cheap ones, they often have a cut end nylon bristle that frays very fast and becomes harsh within weeks, if not within a few days. And most people rush the two minute mark.
So the margin for error with a basic manual brush is very tiny. You have to really be a lot more careful. And for budget-conscious patients that want a manual brush, I prefer a soft manual brush, but I always just show them how to use it.
Different dentists and hygienists have got their own preferred technique. We can actually do a whole podcast on brushing technique for a future date. The one that’s most popular or proven is called the modified bass technique, but that’s all I’m going to say about it now.
I think best for someone to demo. I like a Curaprox brush that is available in some chemists now, but generally from the dentist. It’s from Switzerland.
And I like a manual brush, although I do use an electric, which I’ll tell you about later. And I use a soft Curaprox or even an extra soft, but we’ll come back to some of that shortly.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (3:57 – 4:04)
So you get soft and you get extra soft bristles. Who genuinely needs the gentler option, doctor?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](4:04 – 5:16)
For anyone with gum recession, which we’ve done podcasts about or sensitivity or recent whitening or after gum surgery, I think you should go for the extra soft mouth breathers and dry mouth sufferers. You’ve got thinner enamel and less saliva means that the extra soft is safer. Kids who have mixed dentition, meaning they got wobbly baby teeth, as well as some permanent teeth, they really don’t like stiff bristles.
So for kids, a soft toothbrush is much better. You do have to change them more regularly being soft. The bristles do tend to spread out a bit quicker.
And if you see toothbrush abrasion notches or these little sharp grooves at the gum line, that could be from grinding or Bruxism, which we’ve done a podcast about or what’s called abfractions. But a lot of the time they’re aggravated by brushing too hard with a very hard or stiff brush. That’s like a double whammy again.
So you should switch to an extra soft toothbrush immediately.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (5:17 – 5:24)
And how exactly do electric brushes outperform the manual ones in terms of plug removal?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](5:24 – 7:18)
So they go about 30,000 to 60,000 strokes a minute, which is obviously impossible by hand, even for a dental hygienist. They have very high frequency. One of the best things about them, they’ve got a built-in timer, which force you to brush for two minutes and many of them will pause every 30 seconds to tell you it’s time to go to the next quarter.
So it’s broken up into 30 seconds. You brush the upper right, inside and outside, inside and outside for 30 seconds, then the upper left, then the lower, then the other side. And before you know it, it’s two minutes.
So that’s a good thing. And then pressure sensors, there’s some amazing new brushes that as soon as you push too hard, they either beep or they buzz, they change frequency. The one that I have that I share with my wife has a red light at the bottom.
And if you’re brushing and you’re looking in the mirror, you can actually feel when you’re pushing too hard because it does a little dance and a red light flashes and you learn very quickly. It’s like power steering for your gums here, basically. Or like those new guiding, the newer cars, when you’re getting too close to the yellow line, it sort of pulls you onto the road again.
I don’t quite enjoy that, but it can keep you awake when you’re driving. And then there’s consistency. So you don’t have good days and bad days.
Everyone brushes a lot better when they know they’ve got a hygienist or a dentist appointment coming up and they come in and their gums are all red because the last week or two they’ve been giving it a good go. And they keep it up, they’re motivated for the next few weeks. But then after three, four months, they forget and then, oops, it’s time to go to the dentist again, then they start brushing.
So the electric, and we’ll go into more detail about some of the fancy ones, I think they’re definitely worthwhile.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (7:18 – 7:30)
Now, Dr. Udom, when you get these budget electrics nowadays for under 500 grand, what would you say? Is it a smart buy or more of a false economy?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](7:30 – 8:19)
I think it’s a good step up from manual in some cases, if you don’t have the money. They still automate the motion and the timing. They lack pressure sensors and they just vibrate.
They don’t actually oscillate. The plaque scores can be better than a manual brush, but not that great. They often have cheap heads.
Sometimes they aren’t interchangeable. So you’ve got to toss the whole handle every couple of months. It’s not ecologically friendly and it’s not pocket friendly long-term.
They’re more like a gateway to try something before you upgrade. But I would say you should buy the best and most expensive brush that you can afford, but I wouldn’t go completely overboard. And I’m sure we’ll have a question later where I’ll tell you what overboard really is.
So let’s keep going. Yeah.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (8:19 – 8:27)
And then rotary or oscillating versus sonic heads, which one would show the best clinical results?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](8:28 – 10:17)
Rotary oscillating, that means it goes backwards and forwards in little tiny arcs at about 8,000 RPMs. That would be like the only one that I really know other than maybe some cheap knockoffs is the original RLB. It’s got a small little round head that goes backwards and forwards. The sonic vibrates side to side at up to 62,000 strokes a minute.
And in some cases now they go all the way up to about 85,000 and you really can feel the difference. You’d think it wouldn’t make a big difference. These different analyses and studies have shown that they both beat manual brushing.
The rotary, they seem to have better studies. They can show that it’s a little bit better than sonics, but the sonics are better on gingivitis. So the one removes more plaque, but the other one actually makes your gums healthier.
The sonic makes your gums healthier they think because it creates little micro bubbles that reach a millimetre beyond the bristle. That works well for getting like between your teeth better than a rotary. And I tell patients to choose the one that they feel they like.
Some people don’t like the vibration of the sonic. They find that it actually tickles. Other people love their RLBs and they’ve been using them for years and years.
And they say, should I switch to a sonic? And I tell them to stick with the one that they like because it’s working well. Sometimes I get patients on an electric toothbrush and I switch them to manual and vice versa, you know, changes as good as a holiday.
A lot of the time people use electric toothbrush for too long because their heads are so expensive. And then they got this great toothbrush, but they haven’t changed it in a year. And the head is like completely decimated and it still feels like it’s doing a good job, but you still need the bristles to be in good shape.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (10:17 – 10:24)
Yeah. Okay. And then hard bristles and enamel wear, how much damage are we really seeing here?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](10:25 – 11:37)
Yeah, look, we see these, they’re called non-carious cervical lesions, which is a fancy word for saying those little grooves that gum line, which like I mentioned, can be caused by acid erosion or by biting and grinding your teeth too hard, which causes an abfraction or a groove. And in many cases, both of those types of non-carious or non-decay lesions are made worse by brushing with a hard toothbrush and a whitening toothpaste. The hard bristles will flatten and splay, and then they turn into like similar to like a plastic razor blade, and they cut along the gum line and they cause these grooves in the teeth.
And like I mentioned, if you use that with a heavy grip and a whitening toothpaste, that’s very abrasive, then you can kiss your enamel goodbye. The rule of thumb is if the bristle bends under your fingernail without springing back sharply, then it’s soft enough. So yeah, if you put that toothbrush under your fingernail and it’s like stabbing, it’s hurting, then you know it’s too hard for your mouth.
It should feel gentle on your fingertip.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (11:37 – 11:50)
Okay. And then you mentioned pressure sensors earlier, and then you also get these apps and the timers. Are these all gimmicks or would you say they’re actually true technique fixes?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](11:50 – 12:22)
Yeah, I think the pressure lights are fantastic, especially people that just can’t learn how to brush more gently, and it’s a real gum saver. I’m one of those, you know, when I first started using this newfangled electric toothbrush that my wife got, I got a fright how often their red light was coming on and the thing was doing a little dance to tell me. In fact, this one actually has a voice and it says brushing too fast or brushing too hard with a little Chinese accent.
Oh no, are you serious?
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (12:22 – 12:23)
It’s very funny, yeah.
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](12:23 – 13:25)
And it wishes you happy valentine. It’s got like AI, yeah. The timers will boost compliance with a two minute rule from less than 40%.
Most people without a timer will brush less than two minutes in most cases, whereas with electric, people tend to brush two minutes like over 90% of the time. The smartphone apps or the very new ones are really good for teenagers and for techies. It’ll actually show you that you skipped the upper right or the inside lower left.
It’s got gyroscopes and sensors built in and it talks to an app on your phone with Bluetooth. There’s even a little screen on the phone, I mean on the actual toothbrush if you don’t have your phone handy, and it will give you a little, it shows you in white or red where you missed. And then, you know, after two weeks, most patients get used to the habit and the tech teaches you, but then it fades into the background.
Like I don’t really look at the screen so much anymore, use the app. Yeah, I think it’s amazing.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (13:26 – 13:41)
Okay, and Dr. Yudelman, just moving on to the next question. These AI smart toothbrushes that give you real-time feedback, are they just a fad or the future?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](13:42 – 14:32)
I think it really is the future. I think the tech on these will get cheaper and most of these, they’ve put a lot of effort into, you’ve got different types of brush heads and you can get soft and extra soft and the quality of the brush head is a 20 to 30% uplift in what’s called a plaque score versus just a basic toothbrush after three months. You know, they are expensive, but the prices are falling just like with the first generation smartphones.
They’re really good for orthodontic patients and in people who are getting a lot of cavities where plaque is really a problem. Like I mentioned before, if you can reduce just or avoid just one or two cavities, the brush will pay for itself.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (14:32 – 14:40)
And then finally, Dr. Yudelman, can you help our listeners match budget sensitivity and habits to the right brush?
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](14:41 – 16:36)
Yeah, that’s a great way to end this off. So, you know, if your budget is around a hundred grand or less, a soft manual toothbrush, you know, would be great using a two-minute timer on your phone and we would show you how to use a soft manual or extra soft manual toothbrush. I still think that they work really well.
Like I said, I use it myself a lot if I’m not borrowing my wife’s fancy toothbrush and we don’t share a head. I stick my own head on there. You know, also if your budget is around a hundred grand to 500 grand entry-level electric, but you got to replace the heads like every three months, they can get actually very expensive.
I found that this fancy electric toothbrush that we now sell at our practise is worth every cent a head. We ended up changing our heads recently. I think we used the first head for well over six months and it still looked and felt brand new, but we thought time to change it.
I’ve never had that with an electric toothbrush before. You know, if you’ve got sensitive gums and recession, then definitely go for an extra soft manual or a sonic toothbrush on the lowest power setting. And I always get patients to check if they’ve got an electric or a sonic brush, use it with the power turned off and feel what the bristles feel like.
They should feel really soft on a sonic because, you know, the sonic’s going at 65,000 or 85,000 times a minute. And if you use hard bristles on a sonic or you use a cheap, you know, vibrating brush, you could cause a lot more damage. And if you’re really into your tech or you’ve got braces or having Invisalign, then a premium rotary brush, like a fancy Oral-B with a pressure sensor or one of our sonic brushes with app feedback, you know, that’s you can’t go wrong with something like that.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (16:37 – 17:04)
And that’s our deep dive on toothbrush tech and technique for this week. And also remember, if you want tailored advice, you can book a 90 minute digital consultation or grab a free 30 minute video chat with Dr. Udelman. Yes, the man himself.
And you can find the links in the podcast show notes. Dr. Udelman, thank you so much once again.
[Dr Clifford Yudelman – OptiSmile](17:05 – 17:12)
Thank you. And thanks for having me on again and looking forward to another exciting podcast next week.
[Eon Engelbrecht – E-Radio-SA] (17:13 – 17:40)
Absolutely. And also remember to our listeners, while we strive to provide valuable insights, always consult with your own dental professional for advice tailored to your personal health. Don’t forget to subscribe for more enlightening discussions and join us again next week as we continue to explore the fascinating intersection of dental health and financial savvy.
Until then, keep smiling and taking great care of your teeth.
[Speaker 3] (18:01 – 18:45)
Discover the world of dental excellence with OptiSmile. Join us for a weekly podcast featuring Dr. Clifford Yudelman, a seasoned expert with 40 years of dental experience across four continents. Gain unique insights and expert dental advice by visiting OptiSmile.co.za for articles that illuminate the path to optimal oral health. If you’re seeking unparalleled dental care in Cape Town, get in touch with OptiSmile or book directly online on OptiSmile.co.za. OptiSmile, where global expertise meets local care.
Disclaimer: The content provided in this podcast, “Save Your Money Save Your Teeth” on Medical Mondays, is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to serve as dental or medical advice. The insights and opinions expressed by Dr. Clifford Yudelman and any guests are designed to foster a better understanding of dental health, preventive measures, and general well-being, but should not be interpreted as professional dental or medical recommendations.Dr. Clifford Yudelman does not diagnose, treat, or offer prevention strategies for any health conditions directly through this podcast. This platform is not a substitute for the personalized care and advice provided by a licensed dental or healthcare professional. We strongly encourage our listeners to consult with their own dental care providers to address individual dental health needs and concerns.The information shared here aims to empower listeners with knowledge about dental health but must not be used as a basis for making health-related decisions without professional guidance. Your dental care provider is the best source of advice about your dental and overall health. Please always seek the advice of your dentist or other qualified health professionals regarding any questions or concerns about your dental health.
