Brushing our teeth is harder than it looks

Honestly, how hard can it be? We've been doing it twice a day since kindergarten. But still we can't get it right.

"Odd as it sounds, most people are no good at brushing their teeth," said Dr. Paul Warren, a dentist and a vice president of scientific relations for Procter & Gamble Oral Care.

All you have to do is go tooth by tooth, bristles to the gumline, for at least two minutes, according to the American Dental Association.

But most adults fail miserably. We brush haphazardly, concentrating on the front-and-center teeth and making short work of our molars. For many, the cardinal sin is scouring their gumlines as if plaque were bathtub grout.

Patience is also no virtue among toothbrushers.

"They spend an average of 47 seconds doing it," Warren said.

All of that incompetence is good news for toothbrush makers. The toothbrush is a mature product, one that designers and industry analysts say has reached far limits of amelioration. But thanks to our ineptitude, toothbrush designers have a raison d'etre.

Lately, toothbrush makers have feverishly reworked one of the most worked-over devices known to man. Colgate has presented 14 manual brushes in the past five years. Oral-B typically introduces one electronic brush a year, the fruition of the work of more than 300 designers and engineers over three to five years.

Never mind that the device we know -- bristles mounted on a 6-inch-long handle -- has been around for more than 5,000 years. Or that its job, removing remnants of your last meal, be it a bowl of Wheaties or a slab of roasted boar, has remained unchanged. The toothbrush has had more makeovers than Michael Jackson.

Some changes are merely cosmetic, but the majority are intended to make the simple task of brushing even simpler.

"Consumers aren't good at brushing, so we're taking them out of the equation," said Graham Mott, a research and development executive for Philips Sonicare. "We're making the toothbrush idiot-proof."

How to explain our ineptness when it comes to oral hygiene?

"Most people don't really understand the process or don't want to spend the time and effort they should," said Dr. Howard S. Glazer, a former president of the Academy of General Dentistry, an organization devoted to advocacy and continuing education.

People don't follow their dentists' instructions, either.

"Lots of patients brush way too hard, no matter what we tell them," said Dr. Susan Karabin, a periodontist in Manhattan and the president of the American Academy of Periodontology. "They think they're not doing a good job unless they're spraying toothpaste all over the vanity."

Fret not. The oral care industry is here to help. Can't be bothered to move the brush on your own? The new Ultreo brush ($170) adds ultrasound to sonic bristle action to make things even easier. Just hold the handsome orange-tinged gadget in one spot until you get the signal to relocate it. This hint occurs every 30 seconds.