By Patrick Avenell

Brushing your teeth is the new black. Or black is the new toothbrush. Either way, you can now brush your teeth with a black toothbrush: the Oral-B Black 7000, which conflates German engineering with American FMCGing to create a particularly stylish appliance to perform an otherwise truly functional process.

Okay, it’s an electric toothbrush so there is no need for too much hyperbole: it will brush your teeth better than a manual toothbrush and you don’t have to push too hard to get the job done — quite the opposite — if you do push too hard a red light will flash telling you to be gentler.

Other Smart-ish features include the Oral Care Control, a separate LED readout that belongs to the late 1990s providing feedback on brushing time, brushing areas and brushing modes.

There’s also an ice blue LED display on the toothbrush itself for battery levels and even more brushing info.

Oral-B Black 7000 with the spare brush heads, carry case and LED readout, and the quite nice packaging to hold it all together.

Here is a verb-heavy description provided by an Oral-B spokesperson:

With 48,800 movements per minute, the Oral-B 7000 Black features unique oscillating, rotating and pulsating bristles that provide a tooth-by-tooth clean – a technology heralded by independent reviews for removing up to twice as much plaque as a regular manual toothbrush.

The real star of this toothbrush, however, is the design. The matte black finish may be a constant in small appliance and reasonably popular in major appliances but seeing it adorn the sleek lines of a toothbrush is very novel. It definitely will stand out in stores.

This is very much the Braun influence washing through. Braun has always had a design and engineering focus, whereas the Oral-B brand has always been much more practical — the ‘B’ actually stands for Brush, as in Oral Brush — so the decision to co-brand the Black 7000 with both logos shows how much Procter & Gamble, owner of both brands, wants to highlight these brand attributes.

Oral-B is owned by FMCG specialist P&G and is distributed by Mann & Noble. The Oral-B Black 7000 will be released to the Shaver Shop for three months of exclusive trading in October 2013, with other retailers receiving stock in January 2014.

The Oral-B Black 7000 is RRP $299.