Do you brush your teeth at least two times a day, preferably right after you wake up in the morning and before you go to bed at night? If you answered yes, good for you. If you answered no, I foresee dentures in your future. Seriously though, how do you make dental hygiene a habit and can the right toothbrush be the answer? I’ve been testing a quip electric toothbrush for the last couple of weeks. Let’s see if it has made brushing is my new favorite hobby.
What is it?
quip is a compact electric toothbrush that has been designed to ditch gimmicks like Bluetooth connectivity, USB charging, reminder LEDs to change the heads, etc., in favor of creating an easy to use toothbrush that will help keep your teeth and gums healthy.
What’s in the package?
You can purchase a quip toothbrush with or without quip toothpaste. quip sent me a kit with the brush and a tube of their mint toothpaste paste.
The toothbrush is available in six colors. I was sent the copper version.
Design and features
The quip toothbrush is very compact for an electric toothbrush. It’s barely larger than a traditional plastic handled toothbrush.
The quip brush has a CNC’d aluminum handle with a bead-blasted matte finish. Quip also offers a less expensive plastic handled version of the toothbrush.
The brush is made of plastic with a small flat brush head at the end of the handle, that has soft rounded DuPont nylon bristles that are surrounded by a row of rubber “fingers”.
The back of the brush head has a rubber covering with the quip logo and short nubs that can be used to clean your tongue.
As you will notice, there isn’t an obvious charging socket or USB connector built into the handle of the quip toothbrush. You might notice the power button though. It’s built into the white part of the brush head where you see the q. Pressing this button turns on a 2-minute brushing timer.
The brush head can be removed when it needs to be replaced after 3 months. It can also be removed if the AAA battery in the handle needs to be replaced. Rubber O-rings keep the mechanism water-tight.
A toothbrush holder is included with the quip. This holder has an adhesive strip on the side so it can be attached to your bathroom mirror or wall. It can also be used as a travel cover like you see above.
Let’s brush!
Since the quip toothbrush runs on one AAA ordinary alkaline battery, you don’t have to worry about charging it up for your first brushing session. All you need to do is remove it from the package, rinse the bristles, add a pea-sized blob of toothpaste, press the q button on the handle and brush your teeth.
If you’ve used other electric toothbrushes, you won’t be impressed with the way the quip feels against your teeth. Although you can feel the vibration in the handle, the bristles don’t spin or even move at all.
The vibration sensation might cause people to think that they can just hold the bristles against their teeth to clean them without actually moving the brush back and forth across their teeth and gums.
Even though the brush bristles don’t move, the vibration feature is useful because the toothbrush pulses every 30 seconds to prompt you to move to the next quadrant of your mouth. After 2 minutes, the brush pulses twice and stops vibrating to let you know that the brushing session has ended.
One thing I noticed about the quip’s aluminum handle is that it gets slippery after toothpaste and spit start running down your hand.
The toothpaste
I was also sent a tube of quip mint toothpaste. I normally use Sensodyne Pronamel toothpaste and found the quip toothpaste to have more grit than what I’m used to but the taste of the paste was just fine and it cleaned my teeth fine as well.
Final thoughts
Do I think that the quip toothbrush cleaned my teeth better than a manual toothbrush? No, not really. But I do think the quip helped me brush longer than a manual toothbrush? Yes, the 30 seconds per quadrant pulsing feature really does help you do a more thorough job of cleaning your teeth and gums.
But here’s the thing. You can go to Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, or one of many other stores and buy a manual toothbrush (with a small head and soft bristles – because that’s the best for your teeth and gums) in a pack of 4 toothbrushes for only $5 or so. That’s much less than what you will pay for the quip toothbrush and one year of brush head refills.
The aluminum handled quip toothbrush starter set without the toothpaste costs $45 and then you’ll be billed $5 every three months to receive a replacement head. That works out to $60 for the first year. You can save $5 if you prepay $55 up front for that first year. The starter set with the plastic handled version of the quip is priced at $25. That means the quip toothbrush with one year of refills will cost you$40 – $50 more a year more than buying a 4 pack of manual toothbrushes for $5 at a local retail store. The only features missing when you go with a manual toothbrush are the holder/travel cover and the 2-minute brushing timer.
While I like the look and feel of the quip, I don’t see it as a better value than a traditional toothbrush.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by quip. Please visit their site for more info.
Product Information
| Price: | Starts at $40 for a set, $5 - $10 every 3 months |
| Manufacturer: | quip |
| Pros: |
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| Cons: |
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This looks exactly like the disposable electric vibrating toothbrushes you can get at the grocery store for $5-$10. They don’t really move the same way a sonicare toothbrush does but I imagine the vibrating does add something. But it’s really only worth a couple extra dollars, not $50.
Had this for over 10 months. In the beginning, it was OK – just OK. As time went on the head kept separating from the battery unit while brushing. The unit stopped sticking to the mirror DESPITE constant cleaning of the sticky sucker surface, threw it away. No options for soft, med and hard bristles either, a very limited setup to say the least. The quality fell WAY OFF as time went on yet the heads kept coming $. I quit the service. Sooooo I went to Amazon bought an Oral B Black Pro for 39 bucks (rechargeable) and eight heads for 12 bucks – DONE. QUALITY, COST EFFECTIVE, AND IN MY MED CABINET!
After looking at two blogger reviews, I think I’ll stick to a traditional toothbrush and put a 3 month reminder on my calendar and buy a new toothbrush. However, this brings me to the inevitable – throw away society. Hope I find recyclable toothbrushes. Thanks for your review.
Hello Rita, Thank you for your comments and I agree that a recyclable toothbrush would be great. I don’t see how it could be that difficult for big name companies like Reach could at least make the handle out of a plastic that can be recycled. Not sure what to do about the bristle yead though.
Julie, I’m going to look. I once found a recyclable ladies razor. So there must be a toothbrush. I guess if it’s only the bristles that aren’t recyclable that’s less for the trash. However, I do use a Water Pik that I love. Even after brushing my teeth, I find particles still flowing out of my mouth. I haven’t replaced it yet, except for getting a new hose.
Julie, here you go. https://recyclenation.com/2015/06/how-to-recycle-toothbrush/
I purchased a quip. It looks great and can fit in tiny spaces with the holder BUT it is nothing more than a standard toothbrush with a timer. The head does not move at all. It vibrates, but that does nothing to assist with the cleaning of your teeth. I wrote and asked the company and they said that the primary purpose of their sale was to teach folks to care for their teeth correctly. Those directions are found in a very small pamphlet that is included with the toothbrush. So, basically, you are paying for the booklet and a regular (cute) toothbrush with a 2 minute timer.
Carol, I totally agree with you and that’s pretty much what I concluded in my review. Thanks for backing me up 🙂
Gladly. I wanted to like it – and really I do, but it doesn’t do anything special, and it really isn’t an electric toothbrush.
I felt the same way.
Thank you for your review, Julie! I had seen a magazine ad with a coupon code and wondered if this would be cheaper than my current Arm & Hammer Spinbrush and replacement heads. Totally didn’t know after viewing the Quip site that the bristles don’t move and you’re just paying for a vibrating handle. I appreciate your thorough review!!
Thank you for reading the review. You are very welcome!
I bought quip, and the first one i got felt apart in a week, literally it broke in two pieces, I contacted them and they sent me another one that didn’t fall apart. Too expensive for being a usual vibrating toothbrush, too large for traveling and every time I use it not only the toothbrush vibrates but my entire arm, I stopped using it, not worthy the price
Thank you for your level-headed reviews 🙂
Thanks for your review. I wish I had read it before spending $80 for 2 Quip toothbrushes. I think that this is false advertising as on their web site they claim that it is an electric toothbrush which it is not. It is really a gimmick and just a toothbrush with a slight vibration and we do all the work. Amazing that they charge so much money for this. I will be sending mine back even if I have to pay shipping costs.
I posted a review on Quip’s website and they have deleted it. Customer service said:
“Hi Alok, Thanks for reaching out!
Because on the way our reviews are filtered, it may take a while for your review to appear.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help!
best,
Phil”
But now I can’t re-post anything.
Here’s my original review:
“QUAP !!
Very disappointing experience, both with the product and the Customer Service:
Bought these to replace our OralB Ultrasonic brushes, and thought the offer was very attractive: packaging, sticky-thingy, automatic replacements with battery, etc. etc. but the whole thing was a fizzle.
To begin with, we could NOT find the $25 starter package. it was $30. So: $60 for two., and then $10 every 3 months for replacements. (Ok.. let’s try it anyway.)
The brushes arrived, and right off the bat, we thought they were not powerful enough to do anything, but were reading about how the company is having to convince users that the vibration is adequate, and one doesn’t really need more… yada, yada, yada…
Well, it wasn’t.!! This was more of a mild hand-massager than a tooth-whatever. My vibrating Gillette shaver does more to my teeth while shaving my face than this. (But still thought we should believe them ~ had invested $60.)
Then, 2 1/2 months into the 3-month period before the first replacements were to arrive, one battery died. I called customer service, and they essentially said: “go out and buy another one.” REALLY ? The three-month battery is in the offer, and so this is an incomplete / inaccurate delivery, NO ?
I tried to return the brushes and cancel my order, and they said that since their crummy battery had run beyond the first 30 days ~ NO refund…!! (Ok.. $60 down the tubes..)
Cancelled, and discarded the quap. Bought a Pursonic Ultrasonic 2-brush set with single charging base for $79.99, which works like the devil !! ~ teeth feel clean, and the vibration is knocking the aphids off my houseplants…. Happiness !! (And I bet they’ll delete my review.)
PS: they did.