Colgate 360° Acti-flex

Its yet another review~!

Today, we have the Colgate 360° Acti-flex toothbrush. The claim is that the bristles on the central portion of the toothbrush swivels and flexes side to side, providing a better angular clean.

Initial impression from holding it is that the handle is as bad as all the other ones from Colgate of late, I think I still far prefer the design of the Reach toothbrush, nice and simple but effective. The swept back arch is too curved for my liking and the grip pad of soft-gel material is pretty useless in my hand.

The brush head is bristle only, no rubber bits for polishing or nubs to do goodness knows what else, but that suits me fine. Medium stiffness (as by choice). The swivel part is really a unsupported base of the bristles that is connected by a thin bridge of plastic on the edge of the base that allows it to wiggle. I wouldn't so much call it a swivel but really a wiggle. The rigid plastic behaviour returns the segment back to the central neutral position if force isn't applied, though I wonder if prolognued use will fatigue and soften this so that it ends up not returning to the middle.

As for brushing sensation, it's actually quite nice. The bristles are firm and provide what feels to be a good clean. I can't physically tell any difference in how the head flex changes anything to the brushing sensation, and brushing while looking in the mirror also doesn't really show much difference in bristle action since the angular change of the bristles is I'd say maybe 15° in either direction at best.

I wonder if by providing angled bristles would provide a similar affect upon the teeth and gaps being brushed, without the swivel base.

That said, I bought it on special anyway, so it wasn't a big deal though, I would say its not the best brush that I've experienced on first impressions.