Replacement Brush Heads for Oral B

How To Spot Low Quality Brush Heads

Providers of low quality replacement brush heads for Oral B are easy to find, especially on the internet. These brush heads are made of the cheapest materials and are all produced in unhygienic Chinese factories. The packaging of these brushes usually does not provide any information about the producer or importer and has false information about the product itself. If it has a barcode number on it, it is a fictitious one.

BEWARE: The here described brush heads are of such poor quality that they can and will cause serious damage to your teeth and gums! We hope the below information will help you avoid a bad buy and damage to your health.

Packaging

Common Chinese packs

The fastest and easiest way to recognise low quality brush heads is by their packaging. Products that are sold to consumers within the EU are required to have the name and contacts of the importer stated on them. In that way they can be held accountable for any damage caused by a defective or harmful product. Importers that deliberately do not disclose their information are trying to get out of their (future) liability. Importers of quality products will gladly print their details on the items: it is free advertising after all! So, if there is no name of the importer on the product, the quality is at least questionable!

The lowest quality brush heads are produced as cheaply as possible and as little as possible is spent on all the parts as well as the packaging. All these producers therefore just copy each others packaging. The most common packs have a darkblue background with yellow wording in Germand and English, as in the picture. Some producers try to be a little different and change the background color a bit (lighter blue, purple, red, yellow); but the design always stays the same.

Fake Oral B

Another packaging that seems to still turn up quite often is the Oral-B Flexisoft, as pictued here. This packaging has not been used by Oral-B anymore for years, so if you see this pack anywhere you can be pretty sure that it is fake. If you have any doubts, the price will usually say it all.

The quality of the products in the above mentioned packs is, without exception, terrible. Most vendors do not print a picture of the package on their website though and some will invest a little to develop packaging with their own (usually simple) design.

Webshop Terms

A producer or vendor of quality products will always offer extensive warranties to underline the trust in their own product. The minimum legal cancellation period of distance sales is 14 days after receipt of the goods. There are some exceptions to this regulation, i.e. hygiene products. Most vendors of low quality brush heads will rely on this exception to not accept returns of packaged that have already been opened. Pay attention to this when you buy any product online!

If you do decide to buy your replacement brushes online, we advice you to always check the warranty and return policies and to search the internet for independent reviews of the product and store. you get what you pay for

Sales Price

It is a cliche, but as always: you get what you pay for. The cheapest available brush heads are produced at approximately € 0.50 per pack (4 pieces) and can therefore easily be sold at a few euros or pounds. Quality brush heads are made from better and more expensive materials, go through more steps of quality control and require higher standards of hygiene. Therefore they not be offered at bottom prices. To our knowledge there are no quality replacement brushes available online anywhere that are less than 6 euros per 4pack, ex postage!

Low Quality Brush Heads

In case you have already pruchased the brush heads and you have doubts about the quality you can check the brushes themselves as well. The shafts of Oral-B brush heads are made of Delrin ®, a strong and high quality synthetic material. Low quality brushes are made of thin PP, a cheap and light weight material, which is why these brushes weigh around 10% less. PP is much more brittle than POM.

The most important part of the brush head is the nylon bristles. Brands like Oral-B and it's quality alternatives use the best available quality, namely Dupont Tynex®. These bristles have been especially developed for the use in toothbrushes and have such strength and flexibility that the ends can be rounded with precision machinery, without breaking. They therefore gently massage the gums without damaging them.

The low quality brush heads usually have standard printing on the back that says they have Dupont ® bristles in them but they do not. Cheaper locally produced nylon bristles are used for these brushes, which cause them to be harder and more brittle. They can not be end-rounded (they will break) and thus will have a sharper feel to the mouth and gums. The difference is easily felt by pressing a thumb against them. The low quality replacement brushes feel more rigid and sharper, similar to a dishwashing brush.