The Best Way To Keep Dentures Clean

Whether you’ve lost all your teeth or just a few, most people still use dentures to replace them. But to keep dentures clean you need a special approach that takes into account the fact that false teeth aren’t made of the same stuff as the real things. Tooth implants might only need traditional cleaning methods, but dentures need something else.

Brushing

In the first place, you need to brush your dentures the same as you would your normal teeth because plaque and bacteria can still build up on the surface of the appliance, including on the part that attaches to your gums. Reaching the back teeth of an appliance is easy when you can take them out to brush them, but getting into all the nooks and crannies can be hard to do with a regular toothbrush. That’s why manufacturers make special denture brushes with a pointed brush on one side. That said, an electric toothbrush can also brush a dental appliance without cracking it.

Brush Cleaning

When you use a toothbrush on your dentures, you shouldn’t use toothpaste. Toothpaste contains abrasives to help it scrape plaque off your teeth, but denture plastic isn’t as tough as enamel nor as resilient as your gums. Abrasives will scrape and damage dentures, so your best bet is to use a cleaning fluid like dish soap or liquid hand soap. Your dentures will stand up just fine to soap, and you don’t have to worry about the bitter taste when they aren’t in your mouth.

The Soak

Brushing can’t kill or remove all the bacteria that grows on dentures, so to deal with what’s left you’ll need to soak them in something. Some people use bleach, and while that certainly works it can also damage the dentures if you leave them in for more than 5-10 minutes. It’ll also bleach the pink part of the dentures and tarnish the metal. Vinegar can also work, and although it’s less effective than bleach it also won’t do as much harm to your appliances. Still, a denture cleaning product isn’t a bad idea in this case.

The Gums

Don’t forget that your mouth still needs cleaning, too. The natural teeth you still have and even the gums where your teeth used to be can become dirty and covered in bacteria, so don’t forget to brush your mouth right before or after you brush your dentures.

Dentures use different materials than your natural teeth, so you need to clean them using different products and a different strategy. Still, “twice per day after meals” still applies, and on the bright side, dentures are much easier to clean since you can pull them out of your mouth.