Something as simple as flossing your teeth can hardly be a complex topic, and there’s really only a few ways to do it. You can either .. not .. which is kind of gross, or you’re using dental floss of some kind, or more recently, some form of power flosser (either water or air powered).
The Oclean AirPump A10 is a powered dental flosser, which uses a mix of air and water to effectively and safely floss your teeth and remove stuck food and other things from between your teeth. It’s a simple premise, and it works rather well.
It effectively gets between your teeth quickly and easily, blasting out food and other buildup, and it does so fairly accurately and reliably. That’s about all it should do, and so it does.
There’s a few things to be mindful of, though. On its default setting, the AirPump A10 is quite powerful, and if you’re not careful you can shoot water or stuff from between your teeth across your bathroom or wherever you happen to be using it. I found it easier to use it in the shower (where it really doesn’t matter where it goes), but using it over the sink often resulted in a mirror that needed cleaning.
At $230 on shelves, though, the AirPump A10 isn’t exactly cheap, though there are definitely more expensive options around as well, so where does it fit?
It is a well designed device and it’s fairly compact. While the advertising material suggests you could take this with you to work in your handbag (note, I don’t carry a handbag), I think that’s probably not something most people would do. However, it doesn’t take up a lot of room in your bathroom which is a relevant consideration, it isn’t heavy, and the angled head makes it quite easy to get into and around your mouth.
A tradeoff in size is that the water tank isn’t all that big, but when you consider that a) it’s enough for a single cleaning and b) you shouldn’t leave water sitting around anyway, it’s not a big deal.
Use is simple, with a single button on the side to control the lot – there’s no screens, AI voices or other gimmickry. This is exactly what you need from what should be a simple device. Tap it once to turn it on, hold the button for a moment to cycle cleaning modes (standard, gentle and massage), and tap it again to turn it off. It’s curious that the gentle mode doesn’t start by default, though, as the standard mode can be quite powerful and if you get your precision a little way off, your poor gums may cop a bit of punishment.
Charging, too, is simple with a USB-C port on the bottom that you can easily plug into any of the chargers around your house, and it charges fairly quickly too (not that you’ll need to often, the battery lasts a good while).
The mixture of air and water is said to be beneficial, but feels a bit overcooked – the air certainly allows the unit to deliver more pressure, pushing the water harder and getting things out of the way – but it doesn’t seem to do anything extra special.
Regardless, I found the Airpump A10 to be at least as effective as regular flossing with dental tape, and there was only one occasion where – after eating a piece of steak – it couldn’t get everything out from between my teeth, meaning I had to resort to a piece of floss anyway.
However, for daily use, it’s mighty convenient and effective, and seems to handle everything I could throw at it… plus it made a nice water pistol to chase the kids with.
Oclean’s AirPump A10 flosser retails for $230 at ShaverShop, though you may find it on sale for significantly less (it’s going for $149 at the time of writing), and at that sale price, it’s a great buy.
