Your dentist won’t ding you for not flossing if you address your dental hygiene with the Waterpik instead. Here to help you rid yourself of stringy floss and bleeding gums, Waterpik’s series of water flossers can help you maintain your oral health even if you’re not on a first-name basis with your dental hygienist. There’s the Waterpik Sidekick Water Flosser for a compact, portable solution, and the Waterpik Whitening Water Flosser to help you avoid chemicals and messy strips.
First up is the Sidekick, whose collapsible package was created with the busy traveler in mind. Whether you need to take it to the office, on a plane, or just store it in a bathroom with limited space, this may be the water flosser for you. The Sidekick promises to quickly transform from its cube-like shape into a smaller version of the original Waterpik, all while maintaining the same performance. The miniature water flosser has the water capacity for 60 seconds of flossing (which ought to be enough for your daily habit).
The device weighs in at just over a pound, and is available in three colors: white with chrome accents, white with rose gold accents, and black with copper accents. No matter which color scheme you select, however, you’ll have access to five pressure settings, a swivel handled flossing stylus, and a water-resistant, zippered travel case to keep your Waterpik clean and separate from everything else. Plus, the Waterpik claims to remove up to 99.9 percent of plaque from treated areas, and is 50 percent more effective than string floss when it comes to improving gum health. The Sidekick is available for $130 from Amazon and the Waterpik website.
Then, there’s the all-in-one Whitening Water Flosser, which is “clinically proven to remove an additional 25 percent of teeth stains” when compared to brushing alone. But don’t worry — just because you’re cashing in on whitening potential doesn’t mean that you’re going to have to be tough on your mouth. Rather, this whitening device promises to be “as gentle as regular toothpaste.”
The secret lies in the combination of a whitening agent with water so that your flossing habit also becomes a stain-removing habit. And because the Waterpik is able to reach stains between the teeth and other tricky spots that wouldn’t be accessible by other products, it promises more comprehensive whitening with less fuss. Using the Whitening Water Flosser should be straightforward — just insert a whitening tablet into the Water Flosser handle, aim the water at your teeth, and then water floss as you would normally.
If you use the Waterpik for a minute a day, the company claims that you’ll be able to “restore natural whiteness to teeth in four weeks.” All Waterpik Whitening Water Flossers come with 30 whitening tablets, and retail for between $80 and $100 depending on which model you select.
