After getting a Colgate Barbie toothbrush for my daughter and her loving it and suddenly having no problem getting her to brush her teeth we decided to be on the lookout for one for our son too. He is only three and so we wanted to make sure that he was okay to have one. Having checked with the dentist that this was fine we looked in the bargain shops for a similar device to our daughters. Add to that his regular pressure to have a toothbrush like his sisters and the decision was straightforward.

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Webslinging - The Purchase
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It took a while to find a suitably priced battery powered toothbrush for our son. It took waiting for the right one to come along rather than jumping at the first one we saw. Eventually we picked up this Colgate Spiderman battery powered toothbrush for a little more than the Barbie one we bought for our daughter, it cost £1.99. This was a little more than we wanted to pay but since we have been so happy with the other Colgate battery powered toothbrush we were happy to pay a little more.

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Spidey-senses - The Design
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The toothbrush itself has a larger handle area than a non-electric version where the batteries and the mechanics sit. The head is a double; a circle which vibrates and a semi circle beneath, each with blue inner bristles and white outer.

The bulk of the body is red with a picture of Spiderman hanging upside down and slinging some web. It's all very exciting! The strange thing is that Spiderman doesn't even have any teeth. Quite how he is an example of oral hygiene, I'm not sure. I guess Peter Parker has teeth which, being American, will no doubt be perfect and shiny white. But Spiderman covers up his teeth.

To replace the batteries the base needs to be unscrewed with a particularly small headed screwdriver. This may be an added complication in some households.

There is an 'on' button and an 'off' button at the top of the handle. I presume this is because its cheaper, but a single button would be easier for a child. There is a rubber seal round the battery holder to prevent water getting in a eroding the contacts. This generally works but tends to gradually wear down.

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Getting rid of the bad guys - Evaluation
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Well, the thrill of using this toothbrush hasn't gone away for my son after a few months. We still need to do a bit ourselves to make sure every tooth is done, but I have more confidence that when he does it himself he is doing more than just sucking the bristles as he did with his old manual toothbrush. We now have to tell him to stop cleaning and put it away!

The Spiderman design is probably a little old for him, he'd prefer Roary or Bob the Builder but this is still exciting for him. He keeps referring to Spiderman as Superman, so there is some confusion to clear up.

We haven't changed the batteries yet, but we're expecting them to last for a good 6 weeks, similar to the equivalent model which his sister has. However, already the battery compartment of this device is holding up better than the Barbie version, despite them being identical.

Our son isn't the best at looking after his belongings so most things he handles need to be robust. So far this is passing the test. There is no evidence of cracking, bumps, damage or electrical issues despite numerous droppings and thumpings.

So although this cost us a little more, on the experience of other toothbrushes in the range we felt it was worth it. And so far we haven't been disappointed!