OhGizmo Review: The OHSO Travel Toothbrush

By David Ponce

We mentioned this lovely toothbrush a while back. At that point, it wasn’t being sold yet. Well, it is now, and the guys a OHSO were nice enough to send us a review unit.

So, come inside for my hands-on impressions and a few really crappy pictures (I can’t take a pic to save my life). Out here, I’ll tell you this much: it’s a good product at a very decent price. Oh, and the website.

The OHSO brush is self-dispensing, meaning that it stores your paste and dispenses it right on the bristles at the turn of a knob. So when you travel, the bristles are protected from external contamination and there is no need to bring a tube of toothpaste. There are three models: the Marko, the Divo and the Presto. I received Marko, a stainless steel number. That made me happy (I’m a big fan of the stainless).

The toothbrush comes in a very neat cardboard package, with everything inside nicely arranged and tucked in place. Aside from the actual brush, you also get a mini Colgate tube of paste, a replacement bristle head and an adaptor for non-conformist tubes of paste (more on this later).

Now the real selling point and where the ingeniousness of it all becomes clear is in the loading process. The main container of the brush contains a plunger. This plunger goes up or down at the turn of a knob. So, to load the paste, all you have to do is unscrew the bristle head and screw in the tube of Colgate (and pretty much any tube will do). Then, turn the knob and the suction will transfer the paste right into the container. You don’t get dirty. There are no air bubbles. It’s clean and simple, and brilliant.

Now, the first time you load the paste, you have to be careful to make sure there are no air bubbles in the tube of paste. Give it a good squeeze, until a little comes out. When I tried loading it the first time, all I sucked in was air. So watch out for that.

Once the paste is loaded, put the bristle head back in and turn the knob the other way. The plunger pushes the paste onto the head. There’s a little window through which you can see how much paste is left.

The adaptor I mentioned earlier is there to fit tubes of paste whose threads might not match that of the toothbrush’s. It’s a little rubber “funnel” that screws in to the brush at one end, and to any rogue tube at the other. It creates a hermetic seal to allow for that clean transfer.

On the downside, the cap closes very securely, but it’s not inconceivable to accidentally shake it loose. Perhaps a locking mechanism would help with that. Also, I felt like the bristle head could have used perhaps an extra half-inch in length. Every now and then, while brushing, I’d hit my teeth with the body of the brush. That part is plastic though, so it wasn’t really a problem.

All in all, this $20 product is worth every penny. It looks very nice. It feels solid and durable. And from what I’ve heard, what few complaints there have been so far are being addressed in future versions.

So, give the OHSO Toothbrush‘s website a look.