Product Recommendation- WATERPIK Waterflosser Nano

A more compact and affordable mouth blasting experience!

It always happens to me, I think to myself ‘Man, this thing is reliable, what would I do without it!’ And literally the next day said item fails on me! I mean it, it literally happens to me every time I have that thought. And this occurred again just before Christmas. I was cleaning my teeth with our WATERPIK WATERFLOSSER Ultra, and halfway into the clean, the motor starts to splutter and then it completely died on me! Nooo! I was annoyed for 3 reasons, the Waterflosser was doing the job of replacing conventional flossing (which I hate doing); the Ultra wasn’t cheap at $144.99 (as you want a bit more longevity out of a product at that price point); and we only had this thing for less than 14 months (still within its 2-year warranty period, but we didn’t keep the receipt. D’oh!).

Our untrained diagnosis for the reason of mechanical failure was probably water damage- hilarious considering this thing shares its space and existence with water. We came to this conclusion as whenever we lift the Ultra up, we always found it to be sitting in a puddle of water and the underside of the device isn’t completely enclosed in plastic to make it entirely waterproof. So, I concluded that ‘it was great while it lasted, but I wouldn’t be buying a replacement’, as at $144.99, it was too expensive for what felt like an annual subscription. So, I moved on with life, just brushing my teeth as well as I could, but I could tell that I wasn’t getting the same deep clean as with the Waterflosser.

Fast forward to the first week of January, my wife was scheduled in for her annual Dental appointment just for the regular check-up and clean, and this year I decided to tag along, after almost 5 years since the last time I saw a Dentist (had a really bad experience the last time). But since I had been using Waterpik for a year, I was confident that the dentist wasn’t going to find any major problems this time, so it should be a routine check-up. And yeah, I was right! After feeling a bit embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t been to a dentist in over 5 years, the dentist concluded that my teeth were in an ok condition considering the length in-between treatments. And I proudly told her that it was due to being a Waterpik user. She laughed and told me as a dentist she wouldn’t usually recommend Waterpik, but if it worked for me, she told me to continue doing what I was doing. And then I allowed my wife to have her turn on the recliner-of-torture. And after my wife’s dental treatment, the dentist concluded that she needed to floss more, but the funny thing is that she does each night, but with conventional string dental floss as she doesn’t like the Waterpik. But I thought this was the strongest product endorsement of the Waterflosser, a side-by-side comparison of two people who flossed nightly, one the conventional way and the other using essentially a high-pressure hose for the mouth and I had been commended for the condition my teeth were in? Considering I had been avoiding the dentist for half a decade!?

So, I left the dentist feeling smug and needing to buy a replacement Waterflosser. Fortunately, on our way home there was a Chemist Warehouse, and we were pleased to see that the Waterpik product line-up had been extended to include a few more things, and one was the Waterflosser Nano.

The Nano is half the size of the Ultra, but only 25% less when it comes down to water capacity. So not only does it take up less space on your vanity, but it is compact enough so you can place it in smaller spaces where it’s less likely to sit in a pool of water (Ultra used to sit next to the cold tap, where there was the largest vanity space). With the Nano, the water container (reservoir) doubles as a lid, so again when you’re not using it, its more out of the way (Ultra was easily 20cm tall all the time). And it was only $89.99 at Chemist Warehouse, which is a price point I can live with when we’re talking about like-for-like or similar-enough replacements.

What you do lose out on with the Nano compared to the Ultra, is that you lose 25% of your cleaning time- which isn’t a problem if you’re mentally prepared that you might have to stop and top-up your reservoir mid-clean. Or you just need to be more efficient in how you go about cleaning your teeth (you can almost make a game of it!). You also lose the on/off switch on the handle, which is also fine as towards the end I was finding the on/off switch on the Ultra was also failing and I was just controlling it with the on/off switch on the actual device. You also sacrifice a level of control over the cleaning power, with the Ultra it had a dial which enabled you to scroll through a spectrum of water intensities, while the Nano only has 3 pre-set intensities- and admittedly the middle setting is too weak for me, and the high setting is probably a bit too intense. You also get a lot fewer cleaning heads, with the Ultra you had like 6 or 7 different tips, from a tongue scourer to even a toothbrush attachment, with the Nano you only get 2 of the standard cleaning tips (but that’s fine as you use the standard tip 99% of the time). And the last thing, the Nano feels a bit cheaper than the Ultra, with cheaper feeling plastics (especially with the cleaning handle).

But now that I’ve been reunited with my Waterflosser, I’m confident that I can maintain my perfectly clean teeth after my dental appointment. And now that I know the design flaws of the Waterflosser, I’m also more regularly picking up the Waterflosser Nano and making sure that there isn’t a puddle of water underneath it. So, Like I told the dentist, I’ll see her in another 5 years’ time…… Ok, I might be a bit more regular with my dental appointments now, since I’ll be going with complete confidence that it’ll be a super routine clean with no surprises, as I’ve been maintaining my teeth to a high standard, with my pocket sized (it’s probably more suitcase sized) personal high-pressure hose!

To check-out the Waterpik Waterflosser Nano for yourself, click HERE!