Zap the plaque with ultrasonic waves

(Credit: Hammacher)

For reasons that are all too obvious to the OCD community, the toothbrush has been the object of seemingly endless technological innovations designed to sterilize this most hallowed of hygienic instruments. But one product just on the market puts a new spin on the concept, quite literally: It uses ultrasonic waves to clean teeth, not just the toothbrush.

This germaphobe's delight claims to emit nearly 4 million cycles of ultrasonic energy from its head every two minutes while removing up to 95 percent of plaque in the first 60 seconds of brushing. The only thing better would be one that ran by remote control.

But we're not sure about Hammacher Schlemmer's claim that this is the "only ultrasonic toothbrush," as a simple Web search immediately turns up other models. At $170, perhaps they meant to say that it's the most expensive version.