You're $99 away from !
Toothbrushes were made from animal hair for 440 years. Plastic - only 88. We went back to the ancestral ways and created a soft, natural horsehair brush in a bamboo handle. No nylon. No plastic. 4-pack.
No plastic in your mouth - natural bristles, gentle on gums
Glue-free - bristles anchored in - no industrial adhesives.
Steam & UV sterilised - cleaned at high heat & treated with UV
Mould resistant - built to stand & dry on its own
Couldn't load pickup availability
Try it for 90 days. If you don't like it, send us an email at hello@equil.co.nz and return the product. We'll refund you.
FREE FAST NZ SHIPPING - Arrives by Sat, Oct 10th. (Courier Post Overnight Delivery).
Because that's what toothbrushes were made of for more than 400 years.
The first bristle toothbrush on record comes from China in 1498: animal hair set into a handle of bone or bamboo. Boar hair for a firm brush, horse hair for a softer one. That was the toothbrush, for everyone, for centuries.
Then in 1938, DuPont put its new invention, nylon, into a toothbrush. It was cheap and fast to make, and within a generation it was the only kind on the shelf.
So the plastic toothbrush isn't the tradition. It's the newcomer. It's under 90 years old, and most of us have been brushing with it since our first tooth.
We went back to the original.
Yes, all of it. The bristles are natural horse hair, not nylon. The handle is bamboo. The bristles are pressure-anchored into the head, so there's no glue. And it ships in a cardboard box.
Worth knowing: most "bamboo toothbrushes" only swap the handle. The bristles are still nylon, and the "plant-based" ones are usually nylon made from castor oil. Still plastic, just a different starting point. The bristles are the part in your mouth, so that's the part that matters.
Horse hair is the softer natural bristle, finer and more flexible than boar. Most people find it close to a soft or medium-soft nylon brush. It feels a bit different for the first few days, mostly because you're used to plastic.
Tip: soak it in warm water for a few minutes before your first brush. It softens the bristles and helps them settle.
Every batch of bristles is steam-sterilised at 100°C for six hours, then UV treated, before it goes anywhere near a brush head. They arrive clean and odour-free.
Yes, in the first few uses - to be expected. There's no glue. The bristles are held in by pressure, and bamboo swells and shrinks a little as it gets wet and dries. A few loose ones work free early, then it settles. Better than stray plastic / nylon bristles!
It depends on your brushing. Swap your brush every one to two months if recommended for hygiene and effectiveness (like a regular toothbrush). Four in a box is four seasons. Buying for two? Grab two packs.
Kiwis are putting an end to brushing with plastic
Make the switch
Old nylon bristle toothbrush
Made for corporations
Equil horse bristle & bamboo toothbrush
Made for humans
🔬 Heavy Metal Tested
No Plastic, No Nylon, No Glue
Steam & UV Sterilised
Compostable Bamboo Handle
90 Day Money-Back Guarantee
🇳🇿 NZ Owned & Operated
A 2025 Study measured
But you don't need a study to tell you that scrubbing against your teeth, twice a day, for two minutes... is a pretty strange thing to do.
What we did instead
Toothbrushes were made from animal hair for 440 years. Plastic has had 88. We went back to what worked.
A regular toothbrush is plastic from the bristles to the handle, and it's in your mouth twice a day. Here's what changes when you swap.
Equil's Toothbrush
Regular
Equil's Toothbrush
Regular
Two minutes, morning and night. That's over 24 hours a year with a piece of plastic in your mouth, scrubbing against your teeth and gums.
Thirty years of brushing is more than 700 hours. A full month of your life spent scrubbing plastic around your mouth, and you've never once thought about it.
Look at a brush you've had for three months. Splayed, thinner, fewer bristles. That's why you replace it. The nylon that wore off didn't go in the bin with the brush. It went somewhere, in pieces too small to see. That's what a microplastic is.
Horse hair and bamboo. Same two minutes, twice a day. When it wears, it's wearing down natural fibre.
🔬 Heavy Metal Tested
No Plastic, No Nylon, No Glue
Steam & UV Sterilised
Compostable Bamboo Handle
90 Day Money-Back Guarantee
🇳🇿 NZ Owned & Operated
We had cleaned up nearly everything else in the house and realised we were still putting a plastic brush in ours and our kids' mouths twice a day. We couldn't find a natural one stocked here in Aotearoa, so we did it ourselves. Four to a box, a family pack - we hope you like them.
— Dave & Graedon
REAL KIWI DADS
We had cleaned up nearly everything else in the house and realised we were still putting a plastic brush in ours and our kids' mouths twice a day. We couldn't find a natural one stocked here in Aotearoa, so we did it ourselves. Four to a box, a family pack - we hope you like them.
— Dave & Graedon
REAL KIWI DADS
Join the movement
For the ones who want a cleaner mouth, and a cleaner future - without the plastic.
