Now let’s move on to using the electric toothbrush like a manual toothbrush. In theory, if this toothbrush technique works, you would just get the results of a manual toothbrush but just with the added benefit of those 33,000 sonic vibrations. Instead of the previous technique, I lightly scrubbed with the electric toothbrush instead of guiding the toothbrush. Like before, I brushed 30 seconds per quadrant: 11 seconds on the cheek side, then the tongue side with the bristles at a 45-degree angle, and then 8 seconds on the biting surface. Now you can see the results to the right are way better than the previous results. Right off the bat, they are almost perfect. There are some big spots on the upper left canine and some faint spots on the lower molars, but it looks much better overall than before.
So as you can see, at least with this toothbrush, the best technique is to scrub while using your electric toothbrush lightly. To me, this technique makes sense. The more you move the brush, the more angles it can attack and remove the plaque. And remember how fast the toothbrush is moving at 33000 vibrations a minute. That is 550 vibrations a second and 55 vibrations a tenth of a second. If you were scraping off paint, you wouldn’t spend 1000 strokes in the same direction if it only took five to remove it. The larger manual stroke removes the bulk of the plaque. The sonic vibrations do more of the detailed plaque removal. So it is essential to gently scrub while using the toothbrush in a circular and random pattern, even with my favorite toothbrush.