If you watch the video of my experiment, you will notice that brushing your teeth for 20 seconds is not very long when you only spend 5 seconds on each quadrant of the mouth. Surprisingly, this is almost the amount of time people brush their teeth on average if their brush doesn’t have a timer.

As you can see in the 20-second results image, the pink plaque is substantially less than the amount before we brushed. However, some pink-stained plaque is left behind, especially on the lower molars, but our goal is to have a thorough plaque removal. Therefore, the brushing results for 20 seconds were much better than I anticipated but were not long enough for adequate plaque removal.

In my experiment, I then brush for 20 more seconds, which will be 40 seconds in total. The 40-second brushing image shows that my missed plaque spots are only slightly getting fainter. I did not get linear results when comparing the amount of plaque removed. The first 20 seconds of brushing gave dramatic results because there was a lot of plaque that I easily removed. The more tenacious plaque will require a more extended amount of time to brush free. Therefore, brushing my teeth for 40 seconds is not long enough to thoroughly clean my teeth and doesn’t deliver the same dramatic results.

The remaining plaque spots are taking more effort for several reasons. First, the spot on that lower left molar requires a rotated brushing angle to reach. Manually brushing with a toothbrush delivers multiple toothbrush angles to reach those problematic plaque areas. Thus, you need to brush manually to reach all the deep plaque locations, even with an electric toothbrush. Second, some plaque spots are more tenacious than others. The longer you brush these plaque spots, the more likely you will thoroughly remove them.

Remember, I am using an effective brush and floss.

We now move to the plaque removal results after brushing for 1 minute. The tenacious plaque spots are starting to get really faint at this increment. If this were your daily teeth brushing and flossing routine with a low carbohydrate and sugar diet, the results would likely be sufficient for oral health. However, that statement assumes you get dental cleanings twice a year, use an effective toothbrush and floss, and don’t have a dry mouth condition. But, I don’t recommend 1-minute brushing because some dental plaque is left behind, and most people won’t meet all the other conditions.

Dental plaque adheres to other dental plaque more easily and tenaciously. So I recommend you leave any plaque behind and 1 minute of brushing teeth is not long enough in my opinion.

We then go another 20 seconds and 80 seconds total in my experiment. The results are almost perfect here, but I can still see those faint pink spots. And for all the same reasons I give in brushing for only one minute, I still do not recommend brushing for 80 seconds.

Now we arrive at the results of brushing for 1 minute and 40 seconds in my experiment. The results are great! Pretty much just what you want optimally. For me, this is the least amount of time I should be brushing for optimal cleaning each day. If there is pink plaque still there, it is almost indistinguishable. I can recommend brushing for 100 seconds with an optimal toothbrush and floss when done twice a day. However, my plaque is not likely as tenacious as the average person's because my home care is almost impeccable. So you may want just to brush the recommended 2 minutes that we will see in one moment.

If you decide to brush for less than the 2 minutes recommended, I would use pink plaque staining tablets and make sure you are removing all the staining from time to time.

As you can see from the images of my experiment, brushing for 2 minutes with an excellent toothbrush is the best way to go. You should brush your teeth for 2 minutes as the American Dental Association and I recommend. Flossing and then brushing for 2 minutes twice a day will remove enough plaque to prevent a more tenacious plaque build-up that will cause cavities, gum disease, and bad breath.