Chris Nelms

A recent car journey to Burton-upon-Trent caused me to visit several motorway service stations.  The toilets of each had a prominently positioned machine selling the Fuzzy Brush chewable toothbrush.  If ever there was an invention that I didn’t know I needed, this was it!  I bought two for £1, mainly out of admiration for whoever invented this device and then persuaded their backers to fund the placement of vending machines for it in every motorway toilet (well the gents’ toilets anyway).

The brush is dispensed in a translucent green plastic sphere that is fiddly to open but which eventually splits into two halves.  The instructions state: “For instant results simply place the soft brush in your mouth and chew”.  My personal opinion is that chewing the brush is exactly like chewing a large piece of gristle.  The sensation is best described as unpleasant, and it is very hard for the unpractised tongue to guide the brush over all surfaces of the teeth.  The brush is impregnated with a cleansing chemical (the tiny disc of documentation states its ingredients as ‘Xylitol, Aroma, Aqua, Polydextrose’.  To a non-chemist like myself that last ingredient looks suspiciously like a sugar, which surely accelerates tooth decay rather than inhibiting it.  However after a few minutes of uncomfortable chewing the aromatic chemicals did leave the mouth feeling fresher.  My personal choice though would be to keep a normal toothbrush and toothpaste in the car, for use as required.

Later…I see they have their own website: http://www.fuzzybrush.co.uk/