Dental Floss Holder-Single Handle

This item works as advertised. It holds the floss in place and makes it easy to floss. Having said that depending on the type of floss used, how close your teeth are and how well you wrap the floss onto the handle it does have tendency to loosen its grip on the floss.I usually use the plastic thin and rip resistant kind of floss and I wrap each end two times around the holding pin. This works for me pretty well albeit due to the floss string stretching sometimes I do have to undo one side to apply more tension. Remember that you can also slightly bend the forks closer to each other before wrapping the floss around securely on the other side to apply more tension. But make sure not to overdo it as there's risk that plastic will break.I've given it 4 stars due to the design issues that cause this product to waste excessive amounts of floss string. You only use about 1.5 to 2 inches of the floss that's between the 2 fork points, rest of the floss is wasted. Design should be redone to incorporate 2 holding points on the tips of the forks so that it's not as wasteful. Maybe a little round "ball" that we can wrap the floss around on both fork points could do the trick.All in all it does make flossing for those of us with larger hands and people that have use of only 1 hand etc. a whole lot easier.Update 1/21/2016: Yes, I upgraded it to 5 stars, I still have the item and I still use it every day. After this long of a time wasting of floss gets overshadowed by the longevity (aka life) of the product. I did not expect it to last this long but it did! And it;s still going strong, albeit with a few scars (scratches in plain English) here and there that my teeth have imposed upon it.Update (09/10/2017): The floss holder is no more. It has finally developed a crack on one of the prongs after being used every day for the past 5+ years. Ordering next one now. Well worth the money.

I had some annoying pain that my dentist said could only be caused by the state of my gums. (Which wasn't so bad, but apparently I'm really sensitive to the state of my mouth.)So, after nearly 60 years, I'm finally flossing, in self-defense. Tried it with fingers, remembered why I'd never done it for more than a few days before quitting. Ordered this. Works great - I happened to have a cleaning coming up after the visit where I complained of the pain, and the tech said my gumline was way better after only three weeks of flossing with this implement.Not the most convenient or enjoyable thing to use, but a lot better than sticking my fingers in my mouth!Adding that I have no idea what's with the reviews that complain about the sturdiness. I ordered two of these in 2011, and the second one just now broke in January of 2024. I call that pretty good for the price.I also don't get the reviews that say the floss doesn't stay taut. You have to squeeze the prongs together to accomplish that. Yeah, it will eventually break, but as I said, two of them lasted me 13 years.

This is a poorly-designed tool. The central spindle is free spinning and made of metal, so not only does it rotate but the floss also has little friction and so allows the floss to slip — even when using far more floss than would be necessary to just wrap it around index fingers and do it the “old fashioned” way.To make this worse, the forks are oversized. “Proper” use of this tool requires that you pinch the forks together when setting the floss up, meaning that the forks will *always* be pulling against the floss. Coupled with the low-friction metal of the free-spinning spindle, the floss *will* loosen and allow the forks to open up inside your mouth. This provides a double-whammy: the loss of tension will make it hard to thread floss between your teeth & the fully-open forks make it hard to maneuver the handle at all.Already narrow forks with a tool body that is single-piece plastic so that there’s no free-spinning, smooth, metal spindle is the way this should’ve been designed.Yes, it’s pretty inexpensive: almost nothing. But you get what you pay for: almost nothing.

Overall, this is a good alternative to disposable picks but it is not a good alternative to regular flossing. I am going to use it so I floss in the mornings as well, but it does not work well enough for me to use for regular flossing at night.You should know that picks are not capable of proper flossing and a pick should only be used if you’re unable to floss regularly. (Look up a flossing tutorial.)PROS: Reduces plastic waste by getting rid of disposable picks. Can use any type of floss you want (not sure if any disposable picks have expanding floss). Easy to hold. Has a bit of “give” in the floss so you can wrap the floss around the tooth somewhat. Longer than a usual pick.CONS: Floss can slip out of the pick. Takes a bit to reload if you’re wanting to replace the floss as you’re flossing your entire mouth (which you should do). Because it takes a bit to reload, I only use it for supplemental flossing in the morning in addition to my nighttime flossing. I reload it less than I would if I was flossing at night and was trying to get a proper clean.I wish the pick had a mechanism that would change the floss as you turn the knob. If it did, it would be a 5 star product for me. Still a worthwhile purchase for me at $5-6.