Entertaining Toothbrushes Increase Brushing Time
Fontana, CA ‐ February is National Children's Dental Health Month and marks the completion of a first‐of‐its‐kind study that looked at brushing times of children in the US and how "fun" can influence brushing times.
Brush Buddies, the world's leading provider of entertaining and educational oral care products, recently worked with a suburban after‐school community center to reach 58 boys and girls, aged 7‐16 years old. In that environment, each child was provided a standard manual toothbrush from a leading US manufacturer and asked to brush as they normally would at home. Each subjects' brushing time was observed and noted without their knowledge. One week later, the same subjects were allowed to choose a Brush Buddies Talking or Singing Toothbrush and again had their brushing times observed and noted without their knowledge.
- The study found that while using a standard manual toothbrush, the children brushed an average 63 seconds.
- Average brushing times were far less than the commonly accepted goal of 120 seconds (2 minutes).
- The same children, using a Brush Buddies Talking or Singing Toothbrush increased their average brushing time to 109.2 seconds (1 minute 49 seconds); delivering a 73% improvement.
The research study included 29 boys and 29 girls in the subject group. The mean age was 11 years old and all ages between 7 and 16 were adequately represented.
Subjects 7‐9 years of age chose a brush from the Brush Buddies Talking line of toothbrushes that included the talking characters. These toothbrushes instruct proper brushing technique in fun animal character voices playing for two minutes.
Subjects 10‐16 years old chose a brush from the Brush Buddies Singing Toothbrush line featuring Justin Bieber and his hit songs Baby & U Smile or Somebody to Love & Love Me (each brush plays two songs for two minutes).
"We were interested in identifying how ‘fun' could improve one of a child's most tedious tasks," says Anish Patel, Brush Buddies CEO. Patel added, "By eliminating all variables but the toothbrush, we were thrilled to see that our entertaining and educational toothbrushes delivered a 73% improvement in brushing times. As we expand this product line our goal is to reach the adult market.
About Brush Buddies Brush Buddies is a line of entertaining and educational oral care products for people of all ages; including Sonic Toothbrushes, that clean with 30,000 stokes‐per‐minute, Singing Toothbrushes, that feature today's most popular music artists including Justin Bieber, Talking toothbrushes, designed as five animal characters to teach young brushers proper technique, Poppin' toothbrushes, designed as five animal characters whose brush head pops with action and Standard toothbrushes, designed as three whimsical characters ergonomically sized for smaller hands.
