Celestial Dental Centre › Blog › General Dentistry
Am I Brushing My Teeth Properly?
By the Celestial Dental Centre clinical team · Published · Updated
Almost everyone brushes their teeth. A surprising number of people do it in a way that leaves plaque exactly where disease starts, while wearing away enamel somewhere else. The good news is that the corrections are small and easy to make permanent.
Across our Kasarani, Kamakis and Eldoret chairs, the same three things come up week after week: notches worn into the teeth at the gumline from scrubbing hard with a stiff brush, a ridge of tartar sitting behind the lower front teeth where the brush never quite reaches, and a toothpaste tube with no fluoride figure printed on it at all. None of those are about effort. All three are about technique and what you bought.
How long should I actually brush?
Two minutes, twice a day. Time it once and you will discover how short most people's brushing really is: the average is closer to forty-five seconds, and it feels like two minutes at the time.
The practical fix is to split the mouth into four quarters and give each one thirty seconds. Most electric brushes buzz every thirty seconds to prompt exactly that. With a manual brush, use a timer or a short song until the length becomes instinctive.
Twice a day, not more. Brushing more often than twice does not add much and increases the wear risk. What matters is that one of those times is last thing at night, after which nothing but water passes your lips.
What is the correct technique?
The single most important thing is where you aim, not how hard you push. Gum disease starts at the join between tooth and gum, so that is where the bristles go.
- Angle the brush at about 45 degrees to the gumline, so the bristle tips point slightly into the gum margin rather than straight at the tooth face
- Small circular or short back-and-forth movements, a couple of teeth at a time. Not long horizontal scrubbing strokes
- Gently. The pressure should be light enough that the bristles barely splay. Plaque is soft and comes off easily; it is not a scrubbing job
- Cover every surface: outer, inner, and the chewing surfaces. The inner surfaces of the lower front teeth and the outer surfaces of the upper back molars are the two most commonly missed spots
- Do not forget the very back of the last molars
- Brush your tongue gently, which helps with breath, see celestialdental.org/bad-breath-even-after-brushing-causes-and-fixes
- Follow the same route every time, so nothing is skipped when you are half asleep
If you are pressing hard enough to flatten the bristles, you are pressing too hard. Hard brushing plus a hard brush is a reliable way to wear notches into the tooth at the gumline and push the gum back, which exposes root surface. Root surface is softer, more sensitive and decays more easily, and it does not grow back, see celestialdental.org/receding-gums-causes-and-can-they-grow-back.
Which toothbrush should I use?
Soft. Almost always soft. Medium and hard brushes do not clean better; they damage more. A soft brush with the right technique removes plaque perfectly well.
Choose a head small enough to reach behind your back teeth comfortably. Replace it every three months, or sooner once the bristles splay, because a splayed brush cleans poorly.
Two local habits are worth naming. Brushes sold loose at a duka or a stall are very often medium or hard, because that is what sells, and the label is sometimes missing altogether. If you cannot see the word soft on the packet, assume it is not. And in a large household where brushes stand together in one cup, keep the heads from touching, and never share a brush, including between siblings or between a parent and a child. Sharing moves the bacteria that cause gum disease from one mouth to another.
Is mswaki as good as a toothbrush?
It is genuinely better than nothing, and a lot of people in Kenya use it every day, so it deserves a straight answer rather than dismissal.
A chewing stick used properly does remove plaque, and the fresh fibres have a mild cleaning and antibacterial effect. The problems are the parts it cannot do:
- It carries no fluoride. This is the big one. Fluoride is the single ingredient proven to prevent decay, and a stick delivers none
- It struggles at the gumline and between teeth, which is exactly where gum disease and adult decay start
- Used hard, and used for years, it wears grooves into the enamel and pushes the gums back, the same damage a hard toothbrush does
- A frayed, reused stick is no cleaner than a frayed brush
The sensible position is that mswaki is an addition, not a replacement. If you like using one, keep it, and still brush twice a day with a soft brush and fluoride toothpaste, and still clean between your teeth. If a stick is genuinely all you have access to, use a fresh one, chew the end soft rather than sharp, work gently at the gumline, and get the fluoride from a paste as soon as you can.
Is an electric toothbrush worth it?
For most people, yes, but the reason is worth understanding: an electric brush is better mainly because it does the work for you and removes technique as a variable. The evidence favours oscillating-rotating and sonic brushes over manual brushing for plaque and gum inflammation, but a manual brush used well beats an electric brush used badly.
An electric brush is particularly worth it if you:
- Brush too hard, since most models have a pressure sensor that warns you
- Rush, since the built-in timer is honest in a way you are not
- Have braces, implants, bridges or crowded teeth
- Have arthritis, limited dexterity, or any difficulty with fine hand movement
- Have been told you have gum disease
How to use one: guide it slowly along the gumline and hold it against each tooth for a couple of seconds, then move on. Do not scrub with it. The brush is doing the movement; your job is placement. That single change makes more difference than the model you buy.
If cost is a factor, a soft manual brush used properly for two minutes twice a day is genuinely good dentistry. The brush matters less than the two minutes.
Should I rinse after brushing?
No, and this is the correction that surprises people most.
Spit, do not rinse. Rinsing with water washes away the concentrated fluoride that was about to spend the next while strengthening your enamel. Spit out the excess foam and leave the rest. It is a free upgrade to every brushing session you will ever do.
The same applies to mouthwash: using it straight after brushing rinses the toothpaste fluoride away. If you use mouthwash, use it at a different time of day, such as after lunch.
When should I brush in relation to meals?
Not straight after anything acidic. Citrus, fruit juice, soda, vinegar and wine soften enamel temporarily, and brushing while it is softened scrubs some of it away permanently.
Wait about an hour after acidic food or drink. Rinse with plain water in the meantime if you want to freshen up. Chewing sugar-free gum also helps by prompting saliva, which neutralises the acid.
Brushing before breakfast rather than after is a reasonable option, especially if breakfast is acidic. What matters far more than the exact timing is that the last brush of the day happens and that nothing sugary follows it.
The habit that quietly does the most damage here is not one big sugary meal, it is sweet tea sipped through the day. Chai with two or three spoons of sugar at breakfast, another at ten, another mid-afternoon, plus a soda with lunch, keeps the teeth under acid attack almost continuously, and no amount of brushing twice a day fully compensates for that. Cutting the number of sugar events matters more than cutting the total amount. If you want chai, have it with a meal rather than spread across the morning, and take water in between.
Is brushing enough on its own?
No, and this is the gap that costs most people a filling eventually. A toothbrush cannot reach the surfaces between teeth, and those contact points are where adult decay and gum disease usually begin.
Clean between your teeth once a day with floss, interdental brushes or a water flosser, whichever you will actually use. Which tool suits which gap is covered at celestialdental.org/flossing-tight-teeth-floss-interdental-brush-or-water-flosser.
If your gums bleed when you start doing this, that is usually a sign the area needs more cleaning rather than less, and it typically settles within a couple of weeks of daily cleaning. If it does not, get it checked, see celestialdental.org/bleeding-when-brushing-teeth-causes-and-what-to-do.
What toothpaste should I use?
The active ingredient that matters is fluoride, and most of the rest is marketing.
- Adults: 1350 to 1500 ppm fluoride, which is standard in most family toothpastes. Check the packet
- Children under 3: a smear the size of a grain of rice
- Children 3 to 6: a pea-sized amount, supervised
- Sensitive teeth: a sensitivity toothpaste, which works better if you also rub a little directly onto the sensitive spot with a finger and leave it. See celestialdental.org/teeth-sensitive-to-cold-and-sweet-causes-and-treatment
- Whitening toothpastes remove surface stain and do not change the natural colour of the tooth. The wider picture is at celestialdental.org/do-charcoal-baking-soda-and-salt-whiten-teeth
Charcoal toothpastes are abrasive and often contain no fluoride, which means giving up the one ingredient proven to prevent decay.
Check the packet rather than trusting the front of the tube. Plenty of the herbal, charcoal and imported pastes on shelves here print no fluoride figure anywhere, which almost always means there is none in it. A cheap ordinary family toothpaste with 1450 ppm printed on the back is doing more for your teeth than an expensive one that lists nine botanicals and no fluoride.
Does the water I brush with matter?
For most people, no. In parts of Kenya, it is worth knowing about.
Groundwater in much of the Rift Valley carries naturally high fluoride, and boreholes in those areas can run well above the level that is good for teeth. Growing up drinking that water while the adult teeth are still forming, roughly up to age eight, is what produces dental fluorosis: white flecks, opaque patches, or in stronger cases brown mottling and pitted enamel. We see this most often at the Eldoret branch, and in patients who grew up in the Rift Valley and later moved to Nairobi.
Two practical points follow from it:
- It is about drinking water in early childhood, not about brushing. Adults cannot develop fluorosis, and swallowing a normal amount of toothpaste is not the cause. Do not stop using fluoride toothpaste over this
- If young children in your household drink borehole water, it is worth asking about the fluoride level in your area and supervising the amount of paste they use, since a smear for under-threes and a pea for three to sixes is the right amount anyway
If you already have the marks and dislike how they look, they are treatable, and the options are set out at celestialdental.org/dental-fluorosis-kenya-brown-stains-treatment-options.
What are the most common mistakes?
In rough order of how often they cause damage:
- Brushing too hard, with a medium or hard brush
- Rinsing with water afterwards and washing the fluoride away
- Brushing for well under two minutes
- Missing the gumline by aiming at the middle of the tooth
- Never cleaning between the teeth
- Brushing straight after acidic food or drink
- Keeping a brush for six months or a year
- Skipping the night-time brush when tired, which is the one that matters most
- Sharing a toothbrush, or storing brushes touching each other
Does insurance or SHA cover check-ups and cleaning?
Routine examinations and cleaning sit on the preventive side, which is the most commonly covered category, though it depends on your insurer, your scheme and your member category. Celestial Dental accepts SHA for eligible schemes and bills more than 20 private insurers directly, including Jubilee, AAR, Madison, CIC, Britam, APA and Equity Bank Insurance. Send your insurer or SHA scheme name, member category and preferred branch and the team will confirm before your visit. See celestialdental.org/dental-insurance-and-sha-coverage.
Book a check-up and a cleaning lesson
If your gums bleed, if you have staining or tartar you cannot shift, or if nobody has ever actually watched you brush and told you what you are missing, book a visit. Two minutes of coaching in the chair is worth more than any product.
Celestial Dental Centre has clinics in Kasarani (Nairobi), Kamakis (Ruiru) and Eldoret, open every day from 07:00 to 20:00.
Call or WhatsApp +254 707 535 000 or book online at celestialdental.org. Bring your toothbrush if you want us to check your technique with the brush you actually use.