HiBrush Review

Design, usability, clean & general use

If you order HiBrush, it can take several weeks to actually arrive, that is because it is shipped from China, but I did get a tracking number to follow its progress.

I did not have to pay any customs fees when it arrived in the UK from China, which is slightly unusual, given that this would normally be subject to such fees.

However, the customs label declared the value at just £5, not the £64 I paid. It did describe it as an electric toothbrush though.

The box it comes in is about the size of a mobile phone box.

I did not receive a HiBrush branded box, instead, V-White is all over the box. That is because the product sold via the HiBrush website is just V-White, although they do not make it abundantly clear.

Some images, do show the V-White logo/box, but it is not like the site says, you are buying V-White, the product is described as a sonic toothbrush, by HiBrush.

I am somewhat surprised to see it called a sonic toothbrush, it is not what name is given to most toothbrushes of this type. Although, the bristles are supposed to move at 48,000 times a minute.

On the box, it says ‘V-White 360° Electric Toothbrush With Cold Light’, as well as ‘AI Intelligent’, ‘Whitening Kit’ as well as ‘45 Sec toothbrush’.

I want to explain all of these and what they mean and why they are not all accurate, but I will do this after talking about the design of the brush.

The exact box contents is listed above in the ‘what’s in the box’ section.

Fundamentally the brush is made up of two key parts, the handpiece and the mouthpiece.

The handpiece and mouthpiece fit together to create the toothbrush.

Some may call the handpiece, the handle or core unit, but they all mean the same thing.

However, the design is different from a regular toothbrush as you can tell from the pictures.

The handpiece/handle was available to buy in four different colours, I opted for black.

It is shaped a little like a heart, or at least I think it is.

The 2 sides are curved like the edge of a circle, but the base is flat, so it stands upright.

At the top, the curve sweeps down back into the middle of the handle slightly, to create a shallow U shape.

From the centre of this U is a metal shaft which feeds into the motor inside. To this shaft connects the brush head/mouthpiece.

This top part of the handle is made from clear plastic, with a screw in each corner fastening it to the body. This clear plastic is to allow the blue LEDs to shine through. There is one LED either side of the motor shaft.

This clear plastic panel and exposed screws look really cheap.

The rest of the handle is coated in a smooth, but slightly grippy silicone.

The back of the handle is completely smooth, the sides have a slight ridge running centrally around the handle. This must be where the material has been fused during the manufacturing process.

The front of the handle has a mesh-like pattern with depressions that offer a bit more grip.

In the centre is a power icon to turn the brush on and cycle through the cleaning modes.

The flat base has 2 circular gold contacts that are present for charging.

Fairly small overall the handpiece measures 65 (w) x 60 (h) x 30 (d) mm.

It is quite light also and actually feels fairly solid.

Whilst the coating on the handle is not the best quality, it doesn’t feel terrible, it’s the same sort of feel as one of those cheap silicone phone cases you might have seen or used.

Supplied in the box is a single mouthpiece or brush head, whatever you would like to call it.

Made from food grade silicone, this is soft and can be used on the teeth without issue. Silicone is in fact preferred by some.

The images show best what the brush head looks like, but the best way to describe it is a U shaped piece of silicone.

On the outer and inner edge is a taller piece of material, with a depression in the middle.

This depression is the space in which your teeth sit.

On the inside of the U are 2 rows of bristles, angled at 45 degrees.

The top row is the longest.

These row of bristles are on both sides of the mouthpiece.

The whole design is such that it fits over the bottom and top row of teeth at the same time.

Within the U are 6 holes, which I guess allow moisture through. I am not sure of the exact purpose.

There is also a third and final row of bristles. Well, I say bristles, they are tiny raised dots, which I presume are designed to serve a function.

On the base of the U is a hole into which the metal shaft of the handpiece fits.

The mouthpiece is very flexible and can be easily bent. It springs back into shape, but it is much less rigid than the mouthpiece supplied with Amabrush.

It flexes too much in my opinion.

So, with the mouthpiece fitted to the handpiece, the idea is that the internal motor delivers the cleaning action to the bristles and the teeth are cleaned.

Here are where things start to get really interesting.

Placing the mouthpiece over one row of teeth and gently biting into it with the others, the mouth naturally closes so the mouthpiece fits both the upper and lower teeth. The handpiece sits just outside the mouth and the lips form a seal over and around the mouthpiece.

It certainly looks weird to use such a product, but this is the future right?!

Well before you turn the brush on, you can tell that the mouthpiece doesn’t quite fit right.

Everyone has a slightly different mouth, but according to Amabrush, the manufacturer of another mouthpiece style toothbrush, the variation is such that different sized mouthpieces are not required, a one size fits all is ok.

HiBrush, or should I say V-White just offer 1 size.

This size is smaller than Amabrush. I estimate it is about 25-30% smaller.

Couple this with the more flexible silicone mouthpiece and it feels like it is a much nicer fit in the mouth.

Amabrush left me almost gagging because it was so large and awkward to put into the mouth.

Feeling nicer in the mouth is one thing, sadly the size and design means that for me I could feel that mouthpiece did not reach the teeth at the back of the mouth and the bristles did not reach the gumline.

I have a fairly typical sized mouth in my opinion, so I expected a good fit.

This lack of proper fit is very concerning. The gumline and the very back teeth are amongst the areas most prone to plaque buildup, so its ability to clean the teeth are already limited.

Whilst I do also appreciate more flex in the mouthpiece, this thing is so flexible it feels cheap, week and poor quality.

Oh and if that was not worrying enough when I placed it in my mouth, the size and fit meant that as I closed my mouth around the mouthpiece my lips would often make contact with the handpiece and push the handpiece away from the mouthpiece in the mouth.

Whilst the handpiece didn’t fall off entirely, it was then loose from the mouthpiece. Fantastic, not!

Despite knowing that the chances of this cleaning my teeth properly were slim, I proceeded to try anyhow.

Now, according to the manual, you can use regular toothpaste with this mouthpiece.

No real instructions are given on how to place this, but I went with 3 small pea sized blobs on either side of the mouthpiece.

Some may run a U strip all the way over it I presume.

Given you only normally need just a single pea sized amount of paste, I ended up using way more than I would really need.

There is no mechanism to spread the paste.

You can also buy HiBrush/V-White ‘Bleach n Clean’ whitening toothpaste.

Unlike regular toothpaste, this is more of a foam which fills the mouthpiece more.

I did not buy this as it was not marked as important or essential.

I can tell, from having now used HiBrush, that there might have been some advantage to using this foam, as I was just left with lumps of toothpaste on my teeth after brushing.

Although the foam may offer better distribution, I suspect you get through it quite quickly and can feel like you have too much.

Toothpaste is only part of the tooth cleaning puzzle.

Regular toothpaste also gets caught up in the mouthpiece and is a real effort to remove. You almost need a brush to brush out the residue toothpaste from the mouthpiece.

Amabrush implemented a toothpaste pod, with a thinner paste. Whilst this did not work well, it was a smarter implementation I believe.

Right, to the cleaning then….

For the benefit of this review, I also went 24 hours without brushing to get a good plaque build up. I then used a plaque disclosing tablet to show what my teeth looked like before and after brushing.

Take a look at the photos below? Notice any difference?

The images demonstrate quite clearly my suspicions, this brush does not clean the teeth.

There is almost no difference in the amount of plaque on the teeth before and after brushing. My teeth are still covered in dye from the disclosing tablet.

The results are dire and alarming.

Companies like HiBrush are advertising these products like they are the next best thing and they do nothing.

Let me just reiterate that. This toothbrush cannot and does not clean the teeth, just look at the plaque that I had left on them.

This has been independently verified by a clinical trial – learn more here.

I have not included the results, but I even brushed another 4 times with HiBrush including wiggling the brush around the mouth as much as I could. The results were not much better.

A manual or electric toothbrush, when used correctly will do a far better job.

Needless to say, my test concluded with my getting out my reliable electric toothbrush and removing all the plaque with one normal 2 minute cleaning session.

To clean my teeth, I used the first of three modes available on this brush. Known as strong toothbrushing, this cleaning mode lasted for 45 seconds.

Now, to be fair, I could feel the bristles moving and upon assessing the brush outside the mouth I can see the bristles vibrating rapidly. In fact, I think HiBrush moved the bristles more than Amabrush does.

However, despite this rapid vibration, even the laziest of toothbrushers would say that the clean was extremely poor.

I think I could have cleaned my teeth better with my tongue and finger.

You can feel the vibration in the mouth and it is a slightly odd sensation, but you soon get used to it.

The documentation provided in the box explains the very basics of the brush, just.

The language used is poor. It is supposed to be English, but I think the slang phrase ‘Chinglish’ is a better fit.

It suggests 4 different modes are available:

• Strong tooth brushing
• Comfortable tooth brushing
• High frequency
• Teeth whitening

However, the fourth, teeth whitening mode results in no brush head movement. Instead, the 2 blue LEDs in the top of the handpiece light up and shine onto the mouthpiece and front teeth — more on this in a moment.

There was a difference in the intensity of the vibration on the other 3 modes, but I can’t say any mode cleaned better than the other.

No cleaning mode was uncomfortable, but the comfortable mode did not feel any different, aside from vibration intensity. I think it was supposed to be more gentle on the teeth and gums, but the bristles don’t reach the gums so you won’t get the benefit.

With just one power button on the handle, each mode is selected by pressing the power button multiple times to cycle through the modes.

One of the reasons these toothbrushes have risen to prominence is because they (supposedly) brush all the teeth at the same time, thus taking less time to brush the teeth overall.

I believe this is why some refer to them as automatic, or 360 degree brushes; because the mouthpiece does the cleaning there is no need to move the brush around the mouth like a conventional toothbrush.

HiBrush suggested at the time of sale that the brush cleaned the teeth in 10 seconds. It does not.

There is no 10 second cleaning mode on this brush. Every mode was about 45 seconds.

I say about 45 seconds because I am not convinced the timer built-in was accurate either. During my tests, each mode seemed to last a fractionally different amount of time.

I feel the sales message is somewhat confused.

Competitor Amabrush does have cleaning modes that last 10 seconds.

So realistically, even if this worked you are cutting your brushing time by 75 seconds each time.

One potentially redeeming feature is that at the end of a cleaning cycle the brush turns itself off automatically. Then again, you want to turn it off, if it isn’t doing the job it is supposed to do.

Oh, and from what I could tell, when it powered off automatically, the next time you turn it on, it restarts in the last mode you used. This is ok, but you then have to cycle through the modes to find the one you want, if you want a different one. It can take some time to work out which is which.

Now, that whitening mode then.

The brush head does not move and the handpiece shines blue light from the top handpiece onto the teeth for 15 minutes.

The idea is you leave this in your mouth the whole time. Not only is this awkward, as you might suspect by now, it is a complete waste of time.

In theory, blue light can cause the light to reflect slightly differently on the surface of the teeth, to give a temporary whitening effect. Many whitening kits and even toothpastes offer such.

I believe the V-White toothpaste may have an agent in it, which when used, will enhance this further, but only temporarily.

If using your own toothpaste like I was the specific ingredients may not be present.

However, my top tip is to brush your teeth regularly and correctly and the effects would be just as good in most instances. Or if you really want white teeth, go and get them professionally whitened.

If you want to know more about teeth whitening check out our teeth whitening hub page and video course. It includes all the information you likely need to know.

To say the claim of ‘whitening kit’ found on the box is a con might be a bit harsh, but I think this offering is a LONG way from any whitening kit.

Heck, with the poor cleaning performance of this brush, the stains that will build upon your teeth will make your teeth darker and more discoloured quicker than any whitening effects.

I mentioned at the start of this section how on the box, it says ‘V-White 360° Electric Toothbrush With Cold Light’ as well as ‘AI Intelligent’, ‘Whitening Kit’ and ‘45 Sec toothbrush’.

I believe I have mentioned all bar the AI Intelligent.

Well, this makes me laugh. AI or to give its full name, Artificial Intelligence is built into some toothbrushes, such as the Colgate E1 Smart toothbrush, but there is absolutely no intelligence built into this brush.

If there is, I would like it to learn how to clean my teeth properly.

Mouthpieces I believe should be replaced every 3 months. At £24 a time, this is far from cheap. More about this in the price section of the review.

The brush is supposed to be water resistant. I am sure it will resist water for some time, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for it.

Whilst the handpiece feels solid, I don’t believe the materials are that great or the internal components necessarily very good. I feel this has been made to the lowest possible price.

Built inside is a rechargeable battery that lasts for 7 days. I talk about the battery life and warranty in further sections of the review.

Sadly no travel case or other accessories are supplied. Not that you need these things, a case can be handy. It can protect the hand and mouthpiece, but also stop the power button on the handpiece being switched on by mistake. It is very easy to do, the button is not that resistive.

All in all, this is one poor excuse for a product.

I don’t know how this has even made it to market, it is terrible.

It is a waste of money and resources.