A MUSIC-LOVING dentist from York has created a smartphone app which plays two minutes of your favourite song to brush your teeth along to.

Brush DJ, created by Clifton Moor dentist Ben Underwood, has already picked up Best Dental Innovation at a prestigious industry award ceremony in London and is quickly turning into a global phenomenon after being downloaded in 150 countries.

Ben, 37, said: “When you are at university you are always told to get people to listen to music while they are brushing their teeth.

“Most pop songs are two to three minutes long and that’s roughly the length of time you need to be brushing your teeth for.”

Ben, who brushes his own teeth to Rock DJ by Robbie Williams, said: “I went to a company called AppWare in Wetherby with some rough designs and they helped develop it. It’s definitely a Yorkshire project.”

Since its launch at the beginning of last year Brush DJ has picked up five-star reviews on the Apple Store and Google, as well as scooping the dental award last month.

Ben said: “Winning the award has been a great honour and made all the work that has gone in to the development of Brush DJ worthwhile.

“This year is going to be very exciting with the launch of a new website, more videos showing how to carry out basic oral hygiene tasks and a version of the app for Blackberry and Windows smartphones.”

The main feature of the Brush DJ app is the timer which plays two minutes of music taken at random from the user’s device, to make the mundane task of brushing for the correct length of time more fun and therefore more likely to happen.

Reminders can be set to prompt twice a day brushing, when to change toothbrushes or visit the dentist and hygienist.

A recent survey by the British Dental Health Foundation reported how nearly 59 per cent of women and 35 per cent of men regularly skip brushing their teeth before going to bed.


Ben’s best chew-ns!

• The First Time Ever I Saw Your Brace - Roberta Plaque
• Brush It - Salt N’ Pepa
• Denture Forget About Me – Simple Minds
• Drilling In The Name Of - Rage Against The Machine
• Under My Gum - The Rolling Stones
• Back To Plaque - Amy Winehouse
• More Than A Filling - Boston
• Greased Whitening - John Travolta
• Ticket To Fluoride - The Beatles
• Bite Here, Bite Now - Fatboy Slim