Which toothpaste will work the best?

Question- Which toothpaste will work the best?

Hypothesis- I think that Crest toothpaste will work the best because it is the most popular out of the three. Also, I use it as well and I think it works well.

Procedure-

1.- I will buy three toothpastes and new soft brushes.

2.- I will put a dot of permanent marker on a square tile.

3.- I will put a pea sized amount of toothpaste on the brissels of the brush.

4.- I will do 25 strokes on the tile.

5.- I will lightly wipe off the toothpaste and look at my results.

6.- I will rate them on a 1-5 scale on how well the dot of marker was cleaned.

7.- Repeat for each toothpaste.

Conclusion-

I had a great time testing different toothpastes and seeing which one would win. There are some things that I would change to make his project better and more accurate. Like my ratings may not seem as accurate to some people. Maybe we can invent a machine that will rate or do the actual process so that it a more accurate test. This can help prevent the thought of the toothbrush doing more work than the toothpaste. Another way to improve this test would to use more than 3 toothpastes to see if anything could beat Aquafresh. All in all, I think that my project worked well and everyone should use Aquafresh!

Abstract-

I decided to choose a science fair project that could actually help me in real life. That is why I chose to find out which toothpaste works the best for my science fair project. After collecting all of my data, I would know what toothpaste I should use to get the best results on my teeth. My hypothesis was that Crest would work the best out of Crest, Aquafresh, and Colgate because it is the most popular and I use it and it works well for me.

To find my data, I couldn’t use anyones real teeth, so I had to find something like it. The best thing to use were white tiles. The color and texture of the tiles were perfect for acting like a tooth. I started my procedure by drawing a medium sized dot in the middle of the tile with a permanent marker. That would act as a stain or mark on the tooth. Next, I used one of the three toothpastes and squirted a pea-sized amount on a soft-bristled brush. The next step was to set a timer for two minutes because that is how long a good brushing would take. After starting the timer, I scrubbed in a circular motion until the two minutes were over. Then, I washed off the brush and lightly wiped off the excess toothpaste with a tissue. I used a tissue and not water because I did not want to take off any of the permanent marker that had not been taken off with the toothpaste. Finally, I rated each tile on a 1-5 scale, 1 being the best and 5 being the worst, before moving on. I tried to rate them each right after testing to prevent any fading. I repeated this procedure with all toothpastes and tested them all two times each. This procedure worked well to find the data that I needed.

After testing each toothpaste two times, I had my final data. Aquafresh did the best out of the three and it got an average rating of 2 out of 5. Crest came in second with 3 out of 5. Colgate came in last place with a 4 out of 5. the ratings, therefore they looked the same as the first test. After comparing them, I think that the ratings worked and were right after looking at them together. My hypothesis was wrong, Crest came in second place, not first. I was very surprised to see how much Aquafresh took off the permanent marker compared to Crest.

I had much fun testing out different toothpastes and seeing which one could take off a tough stain the best. My ratings may not seem accurate to some people because they might think differently. They may think that the brush did more work than the toothpaste did to take off the stain. To improve this test in the future, it would be a good idea to use a machine that could identify which one really brought off the marker. We could also test more toothpastes to see if there is anything that could beat Aquafresh. All in all, I think this project showed that different toothpastes really do work better than others. Start brushing with Aquafresh now!

Averages of the Toothpaste RatingsCrestAquafreshColgate12345Types of ToothpastesAverages (1 being the worst and 5 being the best)