Choosing the best dental floss

Learn about the different kinds of dental floss products on the market. Find out which type best suits you and your teeth.

Gone are the days when choosing dental floss simply meant deciding on waxed or unwaxed. Today your choices include several different kinds of floss materials that vary in shape, thickness, texture, and coating. When you add multiple flavors to that mix, along with ease-of-use features like pre-measured floss and handling aids that hold floss, it can be hard to know what to buy.

Before you make your choice, think about why dentists recommend flossing.

Multiple studies have shown that there is no significant difference in the effectiveness of any particular type of dental floss when it comes to plaque removal and prevention of gingivitis (gum disease). So from that standpoint, it doesn’t matter if you choose waxed, unwaxed, shred-resistant, or woven floss. What matters is that you floss regularly; the best dental floss for your teeth is any kind you will use consistently.

The floss you’re most likely to use daily is the one that is easiest for you to manipulate and is the most comfortable in your mouth. Here are some flossing concerns and the features of available dental floss products that apply to each. Review them to help you decide what kind of floss is likely to suit you best.

1. Getting the right amount of floss.

You need about 18 inches of floss. If eyeballing the proper length challenges you, go for pre-cut or pre-measured floss. Pre-cut floss is packaged in 18-inch lengths instead of being spooled. Pre-measured floss comes out of the container in one long piece, but has short sections of a different color and texture to show you where you should break it off.

2. Wrapping the floss around your fingers.

With proper flossing technique you wrap most of the floss around the fingers of one hand to hold the excess as you use a length of four inches or so to clean your teeth. If you have soft or fragile skin, narrow nylon floss can press into the skin and cause discomfort, so choose wider floss or one made with softer material.

3. Getting the floss between your teeth and cleaning.

The spacing of your teeth matters most when choosing floss since you can’t do the job if you can’t get the floss between your teeth. Keep in mind that if you have some teeth that are tightly spaced and some that are widely spaced, you can use two kinds of floss. Floss comes in varying degrees of thickness and with a variety of slippery coatings made from wax or polymers like Teflon.

In general, thinner floss is easier to get between tight teeth and below the gum line. Thicker floss has a larger cleaning surface. Some of the newer floss types are designed to provide “thick and thin” with the same floss. Tape or ribbon flosses are flat so you have a narrow edge for inserting between teeth and a wide surface for cleaning teeth. Fluffy, stretchy flosses allow the floss to be pulled thin for insertion and released back to wide and fluffy for cleaning.

Waxed or coated floss slides better between tight teeth. Unwaxed floss allows you to hear a tiny noise when the plaque has been removed and your teeth are “squeaky clean.” Unwaxed flosses, especially cheap ones, have a tendency to snag and shred if they hit rough edges of teeth or fillings. Uncoated flosses are more pliable, so they fan out when pressure is applied, giving more cleaning surface area.

Narrow floss slides below the gum line better, but tends to be made of stiffer material. If your gums are tender, choose one of the softer, fluffy flosses.

4. Handling special situations.

If you have braces or bridges, it’s close to impossible to get regular floss between the bridge or brace and your gum line. To solve this problem you can choose a floss threader, a special piece of looped nylon shaped like a needle with a large eye. With a threader you pull the floss through eye and then pull both threader and floss through the opening next to the gum line. You can also buy pre-cut floss that has a stiff section at one end for easy insertion so you don’t need a separate threader.

For those who have difficulty manipulating floss in the traditional way, there are handling aids. Children and other beginners, as well as people with arthritis or poor coordination, benefit from using products that employ a plastic handle to hold a small piece of floss. Some of these aids are small and designed for one-time use, with a handle resembling a large toothpick that can be used to clean between teeth. Some aids are larger and resemble a disposable razor with a plastic handle and a flossing head that you replace each time you floss.

These products work quite well for the front teeth, which is good since the place you are most likely to have plaque build-up is behind your lower front teeth. They can be awkward to use on molars in the back of your mouth. Also, since they use less than an inch of fixed floss, they don’t provide a means of getting a clean section of floss as you move around your mouth.