It’s common sense – in order to brush your teeth, you need water, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. Well, a company from Japan wants to change all that: they’ve developed a nanotechnology toothbrush that basically eliminates the need for toothpaste.

The secret is that the brush is coated in nanosized mineral ions which move in the water, removing stains and enveloping teeth in a protective sheet. When you brush, the minerals pass on from the bristles to your teeth, where they stick; they also make your teeth hydrophilic, which ensures that the surface is much smoother. If you brush properly (not overly hard), the brush will last for about a month.

Designed by Japanese designer Kosho Ueshima of The Industrial Design Studio, the toothbrush is named Misoka, and is also quite attractive.

“When considering how best to convey these ground-breaking capabilities of the MISOKA toothbrush to the world, we reached the conclusion that the toothbrush should embody the concept of water itself. Given the complex world we live in that constantly bombards us with information that gets into our heads whether we like it or not, we believe it is important, when a new product appears with ground-breaking capabilities, to present it to the world in a simple way with a greater degree of purity. But at the same time, this must also express the attractions of the product itself.”

Well, really though, that’s just a way that saying if something works great, it should look great – and it does, don’t get me wrong. The technology hasn’t been officially presented – it will be presented at the 2015 Milan Design Week.

So, would you use this nanotechnology toothbrush?