The best water flossers in the UK, tested for that dentist-clean feeling

6 hours ago 2

There isn’t much I miss from my pre-Invisalign “gappy teeth” days, but it was far more difficult for food and plaque to get stuck in the gaps – something I took for granted at the time. Using floss between my pre-braces teeth was easy, but ultimately pointless, like using a pipe cleaner to buff the Dartford Tunnel.

With all the gaps closed, that’s no longer the case, and my water flosser has become a welcome part of my dental routine. A water flosser fires an intense jet of water between the teeth to dislodge debris and leave your mouth feeling fresher.

“Most people know they should be flossing, but in reality, it’s one of the most skipped steps in daily oral care,” says Dr Johannes Jacobs, the founder of Jacobs & Associates Dental Office. “Patients who struggle with traditional flossing routines often do far better with water flossers, and their gum health improves noticeably.”

Most of the dentists I spoke to favour floss or interdental brushes (such as TePe) – more on that in the what you need to know section below – but all agree that using a water flosser is better than doing nothing at all.

“The water flosser doesn’t provide the scraping action that traditional string floss does, but what it offers in return is accessibility and comfort,” says Jacobs. “For a lot of patients, that’s the deciding factor. If flossing is painful, frustrating or impossible – due to dexterity issues or appliances such as braces – it usually just doesn’t happen.

“A water flosser is easy to use, even for kids and older adults. That’s why I often recommend it – not as a replacement for floss across the board, but as a realistic alternative for those who aren’t flossing at all.”

For the past few months, I’ve been putting water flossers through their paces. Here are my findings.

At a glance

Best water flosser overall:
Waterpik Ultra Professional

£64.99 at Waterpik

Best budget water flosser:
Operan Cordless Oral Irrigator

£19.99 at Amazon

Best cordless water flosser:
Philips Sonicare Cordless 3000

£79.99 at John Lewis

Why you should trust me

First off, because I have 32 teeth, as most adult humans do. A weird flex, granted, but a useful qualifier for anyone wanting to be taken seriously when it comes to assessing the merits of water flossers. Thanks to the aforementioned course of Invisalign, said teeth are also now close together, making them more of a sporting challenge for the water flossing contenders.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve been professionally testing consumer technology for more than a decade now, and have previously trialled the best electric toothbrushes for the Filter. You can read more about the ins and outs of that here.

How I tested

A man sits on a wooden floor holding a water flosser with a tape measure in front of him

For the most part, the testing process is what you’d expect: using one water flosser after another, and lavishing the kind of attention on my teeth that they usually get only in the panicked hours before a dental checkup to avoid a tongue-lashing (by which I mean a dressing down, not some kind of novel oral treatment).

Each flosser was used multiple times, testing the various heads and settings, while making notes on features such as usability, controls and the slightly grim-sounding “mouth feel”. But there were also more off-the-wall tests to check the manufacturer’s specs – such as emptying a full water tank into a measuring cup to verify capacities, and testing power by measuring how far a jet could be fired across a room on a full battery.

I wouldn’t recommend repeating the latter test – it’s not scientific, with each flosser’s different heights and jet angles – but if you do insist on following my bad example, don’t do it in a carpeted area and ensure pets are safely locked away.

Samples were requested directly from manufacturers and retailers, with nine being provided from brands including Oral-B, Panasonic, Ordo, Waterpik and Philips. The water flossers were donated to Bridge2Aid, an oral health education charity, after testing.

The best water flossers in 2026

Waterpik Ultra Professional Electric Water Flosser in White

Philips Sonicare Power Water Flosser 3000 in black.

The best of the rest

A man using a water flosser in his bathroom

Spotlight Oral Care Water Flosser with UV Steriliser

What you need to know

How to use a water flosser

Part of the appeal of water flossers is how simple they are to use: just fill the tank, and then work the flosser along the gumline, spraying between the teeth. You may find your flosser comes with different attachments that require an adjusted technique, but that’s the basic operation.

Dr Flavio Pisani, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Lancashire’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, recommends intermittent spraying, and some flossers have this pulsing action as a built-in setting.

“It should be an alternate flowing and oozing that makes the power efficient,” he says. Otherwise, you could “just get your mouth full of water without any effect”.

Some people like to add a little mouthwash to the water, but Pisani says the evidence doesn’t support this as being any more effective.

“I think it’s really only going to make people feel fresher,” says Dr Sam Jethwa, president of the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, “rather than any other benefit.”

How do water flossers work?

Dental floss and interdental brushes physically scrub the area between teeth, but water flossers delegate the job to a pressurised jet of water. The idea is that the water can help dislodge food debris, plaque and bacteria from between the teeth without the downsides of traditional methods, like having to find the perfect fit and the wasteful nature of disposable products.

Of course, water flossers bring their own downsides, such as the larger space they take up and the need for charging or a power socket. From an ecological perspective, they obviously also use a lot of water, and most contain a battery, though on the sustainability flipside, they’re not single-use like floss dispensers or plastic picks.

However, the bigger question is whether they are as effective, and not everyone is convinced.

Water flossers vs regular flossing

From speaking to several dentists, the consensus is that water flossers aren’t a replacement for mechanical flossing, but they have their place. They are, as Caitlin Miller, head of dental hygiene and therapy at Bupa Dental Care UK, told me while I was testing toothbrushes, “better than nothing” for patients who won’t use floss or interdental brushes.

Jethwa agrees. “The example I give patients is a boat sitting in a dock for a long time – it’s got algae on the bottom. Get a hose pipe to try to get it off, it’s not going to do anything. You need the water, but you need the mechanical movement there,” he says.

“So I wouldn’t say that they’re a replacement for floss. It may be better to use a water flosser if you’re not using anything.”

Pisani is open to water flossers’ potential, but says there is “not strong evidence” of their efficacy compared with traditional interdental cleaning.

“There’s recent evidence from a study over four weeks of using water flossers compared to TePe brushes, and the [results] are quite similar,” he says. But there’s a catch: “The problem is that this study was not giving the group using interdental brushes the size that fit their teeth.”

Hopefully, further study will reveal more, but don’t expect anything overnight. “We have reached a consensus about electric toothbrushes, but bear in mind they’ve been available since the 1980s,” Pisani continues. “We found the evidence about the better use of electric toothbrushes about 10 years ago.”

For now, Pisani doesn’t recommend seeing water flossers as an outright replacement, but insists that interdental cleaning is crucial. “I tell my students and patients that if I were sent to a desert island with only one tool, I would definitely bring my TePe [interdental brushes] with me, rather than a toothbrush, because gum disease starts in between teeth or in between implants.”

“If a water flosser encourages people who are doing very little in addition to brushing to do something, then it’s a good thing,” says Jethwa. “But what I wouldn’t encourage is for people who are flossing well, using interdental brushes and achieving good oral hygiene to think that this is an easier way of achieving the same thing.”

How often should you use a water flosser?

As the jury is out on their efficacy, it’s hard to give a definitive answer. Yet, as most experts suggest you should floss at least once a day, water flossers should theoretically at least match that schedule.

Given Miller sees water flossers as an “adjunct” to traditional flossing methods, a routine where the two are used in tandem might be optimal. “It should be something you don’t need to rely on every time,” says Pisani. “I would keep the old-fashioned TePe brushes for the night, and keep [water flossers] for the morning.”

Can water flossers damage gums?

The broad consensus seems to be that water flossers can’t damage gums if used correctly, and are generally more gentle than manual flossing.

That said, it makes sense to start off on lower power settings and to build up, especially if you have sensitive gums.

“I was using one for a little while, and the powerful settings were almost unbearable to use, so I put it down to one of the lowest settings,” says Jethra. “But I don’t have that type of dentistry in my mouth [such as braces] that needs a higher setting.”

Are water flossers good for those with braces?

If you’re wearing braces, you may find a water flosser to be especially effective at removing debris that gets caught in the wires and brackets. Look for water flossers with an attachable orthodontic tip, such as those from WaterPik, Spotlight and IcyBear listed above. These attachments tend to have tapered bristles, making them more effective at dislodging debris from the intricate parts of orthodontics, where standard tips struggle. Once attached, the technique is pretty similar to other attachments: gently move the flosser along the gumline, using the brush all around the brace to dislodge any nasties.

Key features to look for

Since most water flossers do the same thing, it’s worth focusing on the differences.

For example, tank size is important. If you’re doing a thorough clean, then some of the smaller capacities won’t be enough. Yet this directly plays off against usability and portability, so it’s a balancing act.

Power sometimes turns up in the specifications under PSI – or pounds per square inch. While a higher pressure may be more effective at pushing out debris, it can prove uncomfortable, especially on sensitive mouths, so the flexibility of power is arguably more important than the raw PSI figure.

If you’re looking at a cordless model, as most of the ones in this guide are, it’s also worth considering how they’re charged. Some power up using USB-C, which is undoubtedly more convenient than a proprietary lead, as most folk have several cables lying around. Finally, some people like to floss while in the shower. If that’s you, then look for one that has IPX7 protection.

For more:
The best electric toothbrushes, tested
Suri 2.0 electric toothbrush review
How to make your toothbrush last longer – and keep it out of landfill

Alan Martin is a writer who has been putting products, including phones, gaming devices and wearables, through their paces for more than a decade. Since he added dental products to his areas of expertise, his teeth have never been happier

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