Silk'n ToothWave: in search of perfectly white teeth
4.5.2020
Translation: machine translated
Silk'n ToothWave advertises whiter teeth thanks to radiofrequency technology. A dental hygienist is sceptical.
"Silk'n ToothWave produces unprecedented results comparable to those achieved by a dental hygienist," reads a statement on Internet. Their toothbrush, the ToothWave, is claimed to make your teeth whiter and remove tartar.
The commercial promises even more.
In the world's cleanest flat, the woman with the whitest, most perfect teeth ever walks into a clinically clean bathroom. She grabs the Silk'n ToothWave and examines it from every angle. The toothbrush looks so good that the woman doesn't even need to use toothpaste.
It even says below the video that the brush can "make" teeth eight times whiter in colour in six weeks.
Unbelievable! I've got to try it out!
After two months of testing, the hard truth hits me: teeth eight levels whiter will remain a dream. But what's going on?
Andreas Obenauer, owner of the dental hygiene practice White Smyle, laughs and frowns when he hears the famous Silk'n company ad:
"It's quite possible for a toothbrush to brighten teeth, but only if the person has a lot of plaque and tartar and manages to remove it with the toothbrush. A toothbrush and toothpaste can always remove surface stains," he says. On the other hand, lightening deep down to the enamel is not possible.
The anatomy of the tooth
To understand how a toothbrush works, you need to look deep inside a tooth and understand where the white colour comes from.
To simplify, a tooth is made up of two parts, the crown and the roots. Andres Obenauer focuses his explanation on the crown.
This is covered by a protective layer, the tooth enamel, which is naturally white in colour. The more or less yellow tint of our teeth comes from the dentine underneath, which shows through.
When we're young, we're more likely to be able to see through our teeth.
When we are young, we have brilliant white teeth, but the older we get, the more yellow our teeth become. The daily use of our teeth for chewing gradually wears away their protective enamel, which thins and allows more and more of the yellow dentin to show through. Our lifestyles don't help either: coffee, tea, red wine, curry, red fruit, cigarettes, etc. tend to stain our teeth. In short: what stains our clothes, stains our teeth.
The powers of the toothbrush
The toothbrush can help remove bacteria, also known as plaque, from the outer layers of the teeth. Because bacteria form in our mouths every day, brushing our teeth is particularly important. If we don't do it regularly, cavities or tartar can form and cause holes in our teeth.
Andres Obenauer makes an important point in this sea of toothbrushes, brush heads, popular beliefs and advertising promises:
"Contrary to what you sometimes hear in toothbrush advertisements, only sonic or ultrasonic brushes can clean teeth thoroughly."
Sonic toothbrushes work by emitting vibrations. With a pulse rate of 40,000 per minute, they vibrate much faster than will ever be possible with a traditional toothbrush. Since the sonic toothbrush does all the cleaning, all we have to do is run it over our teeth. Thanks to the pressure waves, the toothbrush even reaches the interstices and cleans them.
According to Andreas Obenauer, this makes brushing gentler and protects the enamel better.
An ordinary and popular sonic toothbrush that he happily recommends is the Philips Sonicare.
However, ultrasonic toothbrushes are even better with their pulse rate of 96 million per minute. It could be said that an ultrasonic toothbrush is like a sonic toothbrush on steroids.
The electromagnetic vibrations penetrate up to 1.5 cm into the gums. This gentle way of brushing teeth allows deeper penetration into the tissue and encourages blood flow to the gums. Ultrasound neutralises and eliminates bacteria in the interstices.
According to Andreas Obenauer, an ultrasonic toothbrush with the bristle movements of a sonic toothbrush would be ideal. Our teeth and gums would then benefit from a double effect.
The Silk'n company claims to have developed a new method, namely the patented DentalRF technology. The pulse rate is said to be 48,000 per minute.
Andreas Obenauer is sceptical: firstly, this isn't the first toothbrush that removes tartar and secondly it sounds a lot like a simple, faster sonic toothbrush. On the other hand, he points out that a sonic toothbrush does indeed perform better than other electric toothbrushes, but he remains cautious with these claims and puts things into perspective:
"Whatever electric toothbrush we use, it will in all cases be more effective than a traditional manual toothbrush."
This still doesn't explain why my teeth haven't gotten whiter.
Whitening: how to get your smile back
A toothbrush, with mechanical, sonic or ultrasonic movements, can only help us remove and avoid dirt and plaque. However, this does not make our teeth whiter. The bright white we see in the ads comes from deep inside our teeth. Precisely the places that are inaccessible to the toothbrush. So a toothbrush, as great as it is, will never replace a visit to the hygienist.
However, the latter alone is not enough either. The expert advises regular brushing and, above all, not forgetting to floss. Even if flossing is a real pain in the arse, it's essential, because that's how we can try to prevent the remains of meals ¨ne turning into plaque and then becoming tartar or cavities.
To whiten teeth, there's really only whitening. In a nutshell, it works like this: the whitening agent penetrates the outer layers of the tooth and dilutes the disturbing colour pigments in order to lighten the teeth.
So that explains why my teeth got cleaner, but not whiter.
Stephanie Tresch
Video Producer
stephanie.tresch@digitecgalaxus.chMy world moves in 25 frames per second. As a journalist, I report – not because I can, but because I can’t help myself. After all, the world is full of stories that are waiting to be told. Adventures don't wait. From national to international news, hand me a camera and a mic and I've got it covered.
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