SURI Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush Review

Focusing on Earth-friendly, sustainable practices is admirable, to say the least, especially for those people who go the extra mile. We’re talking about those considerate enough to plant more trees while also limiting their use of paper. That’s not to say we’re here to shame anyone into doing more than what they can—every effort helps, big or small.

We are here, though, to take a look at the SURI Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush, an electric toothbrush built with sustainability in mind. In other words, it’s another small step you can add to your “Help Mother Earth” to-do list.

The Rundown

Okay, so what makes a toothbrush sustainable? The materials that make it up certainly factor in, such as the castor oil bristles, cornstarch brush head, steel internal body, and aluminum frame. Additionally, SURI has taken steps to make its products sustainable, such as partnering with ClimatePartner to offset the carbon footprint resulting from manufacturing and transport and being an accredited B Corp, assessed for their high social and environmental performance standards.

If that’s not enough, this toothbrush is repairable. By that, SURI means they have a repair policy covered under their warranty. They’ll send you a replacement brush and return labels after you contact their customer representative. It’s not the DIY, order-the-parts-yourself kind of approach we were expecting, but it’s something.

Our key takeaway is that this toothbrush isn’t just a spin-off of an existing product with 10% more wood to give it a more nature-y look and feel. No, this is a more comprehensive approach than that. What’s even better is that, based on our testing, this is still a full-fledged, well-made electric toothbrush; there doesn’t seem to be any compromises in functionality for the sake of sustainability.

The entire aluminum body (and the underlying steel material) feels durable. The brush head connects to the main body via a solid steel shaft, and there’s very little play between the two pieces. It’s nice to see the tight tolerances they’ve achieved here since it helps us brush rigorously with more confidence (ever tried brushing with a flimsy drugstore toothbrush? Yeah, we hate it, too). Since it’s removable, the brush head is also replaceable, with SURI offering a subscription service to make it easier for you. SURI recommends replacing the brush head every two to three months. Ours is holding up well even after four months of regular use, though your mileage may vary.

As the name suggests, this toothbrush uses a vibrating brush head instead of a spinning one. You’ll find varying comparisons, studies, and preferences on the two techniques. On their part, SURI says neither is superior to the other, though, at the time of writing, SURI exclusively sells vibrating toothbrushes, so make of that as you will. For more context, a P&G-backed study says rotating types are better (the company sells both types).

The vibration has two settings: clean mode and polish mode. Pressing the button turns on a white LED to indicate clean mode, and pressing it again puts it on polish mode, indicated by a blue light. Note that the 33,000-per-minute vibration remains constant for both modes, but the intensity increases.

Though clean mode’s intensity is lower, we’d say it’s the preferable setting for those with sensitive gums. It’s still strong enough to remove most debris and plaque from your teeth without irritating the surrounding gums.

At the bottom of the toothbrush are three metal contact points where the charging station’s pogo pins connect. Charging time takes about four hours, and it should last for about forty days. During testing, we were able to eke out six to eight weeks of use while brushing daily. While a charger and a magnetic mirror mount come with the base variant, a disinfecting UV case is extra. We have that on hand, though it’s not the most travel-friendly case, and its charging function is notably limited since it’s only able to charge the toothbrush when we connect the case to an external power source (a charging adapter or power bank). Silver lining: the case uses a USB-C port, so you don’t have to deal with proprietary connectors.

Packability

From a packability standpoint, SURI’s offering here is quite large, especially when we compare it to those from quip and Philips (which we’ll show in the next section). The biggest offending factor here is the bulky UV case. To be fair, it’s not strictly a travel case, and its requirement for an external power source backs this up. On the other hand, it’s also the only (optional) way to cover the toothbrush for transport.

Size-wise, it’s honestly big enough to be a retail packaging. Compare that to the much more minimal case of the Philips One Battery Toothbrush by Sonicare and the quip Electric Toothbrush’s simple cap, and it becomes clear which of the three is the toughest to fit in a toiletry bag. Yes, the rectangular shape is an efficient one, but it’s greatly offset by the case’s overall size.

Additionally, though we’re not engineers qualified to comment on technical design, it would’ve been great if a case this size had a built-in battery and didn’t require an external power source. It would make the bulk a much more acceptable tradeoff, at the very least. To be fair, SURI directly addresses this, saying the toothbrush’s charge lasts multiple weeks anyway, batteries are hard to recycle (and they are), and not having a battery makes it TSA airport-safe.

Quick Comparison

Apart from size, SURI’s electric toothbrush is the most powerful, capping out at the aforementioned 33,000 vibrations per minute. Meanwhile, the Philips and quip toothbrushes top out at 13,0000 and 15,000, respectively. We feel that we get a cleaner brushing experience with SURI’s toothbrush.

However, we’d still go for the quip toothbrush because we put a lot of emphasis on packability. On the other hand, the soft bristles and middle-of-the-road packability of the Philips toothbrush make it a worthwhile compromise for those looking for something gentler.