Alex and I are germaphobes. Yes – we really are. And Alex much more than me, he is the germ police in our house. But one thing that I hate is cleaning with chemicals as I personally feel that they can be just as harmful. So we try to find alternatives to cleaning and sanitizing our house and ourselves for the chemical-filled alternatives. We have posted some about homemade natural cleaners (and will continue to do so), but have you ever thought about your toothbrush?
I was watching Dr. Oz a couple of months ago and he talked about how disgusting our toothbrushes were and all the the germs that infest them. So, he recommended a UV Light sanitizer that comes with a toothbrush. This set allowed you to sanitize your toothbrush and kill 99.9% of germs on your toothbrush between uses. See the article on the Dr. Oz site and the Dr. Oz video talking about it too!
This totally made sense, it was clear that toothbrushes are nasty and it isn’t cost efficient to change constantly (especially as a family of 7) and the UV light sanitizing seemed to be the perfect “natural” solution to a clean toothbrush, healthier mouth and therefore healthier life.
This is the $189.00 at Bed Bath and Beyond that Dr. Oz recommended – the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Electric Toothbrush.
But the cost floored me at $189.00 at Bed Bath and Beyond for EACH set for each person! YIKES!! We really wanted to see if we could find an alternative to this high cost. We did find them on Amazon for $119, but this was still too much for our budget. In addition, we get toothbrushes for FREE and very cheap all of the time, so all we really needed was a way to sanitize them naturally.
In our quest to find a cheaper alternative, we came across a company called Vio Light who sells exactly what we were looking for. They were still higher than we wanted to pay so we searched for deals and discounts. A couple of days later, we were able to buy $40 Vio Light vouchers for $20 through Eversave! Yipee!! We bought two of them.
We then bought the plug-in 4 toothbrush sanitizer (in the kids’ bathroom) and the battery operated 2 toothbrush sanitizer for our bathroom. The results were awesome as we had stopped catching bugs and no one was sick in our house since starting this! However, our little battery-operated santizier died in a couple of weeks, we replaced the batteries and died again in about 10 days, replaced the batteries yet again and now the power is very weak. We highly recommend from our experience that you do not buy the battery operated one! The Plug-in one is awesome and the kids toothbrushes are still being sanitized today just as they were the day we bought it! All you do is after brushing, place your toothbrush in, push the button and then the UV light comes on for 10 minutes to clean them. We just keep the toothbrushes in there as the toothbrush holder too!
The Kids’ 4 toothbrush sanitizer! Love it!
Our dead battery 2-toothbrush sanitizer that will soon be replaced 😉
We were trying to “save money” and not buy a second 4 toothbrush sanitizer (as we only needed to sanitize two more) and the battery operated one was less money. We haven’t had it now for a few weeks and we both started feeling sluggish and ill and I even got sick for the first time in months! Yes, I know this isn’t necessarily because of the sanitizer, but it made sense to me. 🙂
Last week, Alex said that we have to buy a second plug-in sanitizer as it is totally worth it! We have been waiting for another deal on them and lo, and behold, Mamapedia today is selling the $40 Vio Light vouchers for $20!! YEAH! So I totally snatched one and am going to be immediately buying us a new sanitizer for Alex and I.
The moral of the story is that we completely agree with Dr. Oz’s recommendation, but couldn’t afford the cost and so we found an alternative that works beautifully and that we fully stand behind after trying it (just not the battery operated one!). And now you can grab one of these sanitizers for cheap too through Mamapedia today!
Here’s the deal:
- Head to the Mamapedia site here
- You will see the $40 Vio Light voucher for $20
- You can buy up to 5 of them
- Add them to your cart and complete your purchase
- Your voucher will be ready in a couple of days
- Then you can redeem your voucher at the Vio Light website
They have several products and even cute kids ones and have been featured on several shows like Rachel Ray, Oprah and more. You can join the Vio Light mailing list and you will receive a coupon code for 10% off too. Dr. Oz needs to recommend these ones as they are much cheaper and seemingly just as effective as the $189 he has 🙂
Our only regret is not knowing about this method of sanitizer sooner – we probably could have prevented many illnesses and misery in our house! Plus it saves us money on medicine and keeping our toothbrushes lasting a lot longer!!
Do you have a toothbrush sanitizing system? Your thoughts?
Don’t miss our other cheaper alternatives for Dr. Oz Recommendations!
Disclaimer: Our website is not affiliated with the Dr Oz show. Please check any advice with a licensed practitioner prior to attempting any recommendations provided here. And as in any case on this site, any type of health recommendation is for information purposes only – the statements made here have not been evaluated by the U S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor are they intended to provide any type of medical advice.
Tara
Thank you so much for this, I have been wanting one of these but couldn’t justify the price.
Tara
Thank you so much for this, I have been wanting one of these but couldn’t justify the price.
Elena
My husband and I bought ourselves the exact same sonicare toothbrushes at Costco! They come 2 in a pack and I believe we paid 119.00 if not less. (We used a coupon for them that comes in the costco coupon booklet.) We love them : )
Elena
My husband and I bought ourselves the exact same sonicare toothbrushes at Costco! They come 2 in a pack and I believe we paid 119.00 if not less. (We used a coupon for them that comes in the costco coupon booklet.) We love them : )
Marty
As a student majoring in biology, I can tell you these are a BAD idea.
UV light kills bacteria by disrupting its DNA. However, this does not work for all bacteria. Several strains can and WILL mutate to resist the UV light (just like bacteria has done to antibiotics, medicine, etc.) for centuries. Now you have little bacteria on your brush, but it is dangerous and resistant. (MRSA – anyone? You may not get MRSA from your toothbrush, but I’m sure if you swabbed it you would find some resistant strains of other bacteria)
Also UV light does the same thing to our DNA. So I pray you pray that it doesn’t infiltrate outside the box. You will have no way of knowing if it does this unless you did a closed study experiment. I personally, would just avoid it at all costs considering mutations in our DNA usually lead to rapidly multiplying cells which leads to cancer.
Please get educated! Don’t buy into the mentality bacteria is bad.
Bacteria is good! It is all over your body and inside your body. RIGHT NOW! The bacteria on your skin (called microflora) helps fight off “bad” bacteria that tries to enter your body. The bacteria inside your body helps with minor digestion in the colon and various other regulation uses.
Learn to love it. Also one more note with the household cleaners: the reason most children have begun to develop allergies is because we have sheltered them by killing TOO much bacteria in their environment. They do not become accustomed to being around it, and consequently their immune system goes wild when exposed to it in environments outside the home. This is NOT healthy. It is good to have clean counters, but I would recommend white vinegar + water only. If not just water alone. The more you are exposed to bacteria, the more resistant you will become to it. This is a very good thing. If you don’t believe me — I was raised in a house where cleaners were scarce. I haven’t gotten the flu in 6 years, do not have any allergies, and rarely catch more than a cold.
I encourage you to do your own research (maybe buy a microbiology book) or search from CREDIBLE web sources. Note Dr. Oz is not credible and is out to sell products. — shocker. My nutrition professor hates him. He has spent the majority of his life in the laboratory studying vitamins and has explained to us time and time again why he is wrong. I personally don’t hate Dr. Oz, but I take what he says with a grain of salt and do my own research. I encourage you to do the same.