Home Teeth Whitening Info

If you want whiter teeth, you have two options. Pay a dentist to do it or take the time to do it yourself.  Going the dentist route can be convenient – they can usually bleach your choppers into pearly white loveliness within one office visit – but you need to be prepared to pay for that convenience. It can cost you from $500.00 to $1,000.00 or more. That’s a lot of green to lay down for a little white, especially in today’s economy. So if you’re not willing or able to throw your cash at the problem, you’re probably going to try to do some sort of at home teeth whitening.

Well, you’re in luck. There are ample resources out there to help you achieve your goal of a dazzling smile. But there is a trade off. The trade off is that you can’t get it done nearly as fast as the dentist can. And you probably won’t get your beautiful bite quite as white either. But you can come pretty darn close and you can save a pretty penny too.

Uh…no. Whitening toothpastes are a waste of your time. They’re only going to get at the simple stains that sit on your surface enamel. You can brush with them six times a day, avoid chocolate, and sip your coffee through a straw but your teeth won’t get one iota whiter. Oh sure, they’ll polish up nice and shiny but they’ll be a shiny shade of…not-white. That’s because they can’t get to the root cause.

Just under your enamel lies the dentin. This is the part of your tooth that protects the root and serves as a foundation for the enamel. It’s mostly calcium and it is usually pale or yellow. As you get older, your dentin naturally becomes more yellow. This is what gives your teeth their true color. Whitening toothpastes simply can’t penetrate the enamel easily enough nor do they have strong enough bleaching properties to have any lasting effect on the dentin. So you could brush your teeth until they were just pointy nubs, and you’d just have yellowy pointy nubs.

Human beings have been trying to keep their teeth white for centuries. Long before there were chemical applications there were natural ones. For instance:

• Strawberries – these juicy little orbs have been smooshed up into a paste and brushed with for many years. Some people will even rub them directly onto their teeth.
• Orange Peel – the inside of the orange peel actually has been used the same way as the strawberry. Peels can be ground up into a paste as well, but it’s less convenient.
• Lemon Juice & Salt – yet another natural teeth bleaching treatment.

When using any of these natural treatments, be sure to rinse well when you’re done.

Also, many teeth whitening home remedies revolve around baking soda. It seems like there are recipes in every family for mixing baking soda with something to produce whiter teeth. You can mix baking soda with your existing toothpaste. You can rub it on your teeth and then brush with water. You can dip your toothbrush in hydrogen peroxide and then sprinkle it with baking soda and brush. You can even blend it all up with a dash of salt and white vinegar.

However you use it, you need to know it will be one of the least appetizing tastes you’ll ever experience. So you’ll want to rinse thoroughly when you’re done. Also, because baking soda is abrasive remember that using it over time will wear down your enamel.

Getting your teeth white and keeping them white are two different things. To keep them as white as possible you may need to change some of your habits.

• Stop Smoking – cigarette smoke is a major tooth-stainer. Quit if you can and at least cut back if you can’t.
• Cut Back on Coffee – another great way to tarnish your teeth. Actually, all dark colored beverages tend to have the same effect.
• Brush Twice a Day – bits of food and drink stay trapped in those itty-bitty places in your mouth for a long time, all the while building up tarter and gunk that submarine all your other good efforts
• Floss Before Bedtime – last chance to make a clean sweep. Don’t let your mouth be a “stain factory” while you sleep.

These are the over-the-counter kits that attempt to do the same thing your dentist does in his or her office. With these types of kits you have three different approaches to choose from:

• Mouth-Trays – these are shaped like a football mouthpiece. They’re made to contain a whitening gel and you wear them once or twice a day for 30 minutes at a time. You can’t talk (easily) when they’re in your mouth and swallowing is more difficult. The results can be good but they’re definitely not comfortable.
• Paint-On Solutions – in this case you apply the solution directly to your teeth and just leave it on. This takes a little bit of getting used to but it’s definitely more comfortable than the mouth-trays.
• Thin Tape-Like Strips – the newest of the techniques. Here you apply thin strips to your teeth multiple times a day for 30 minutes. On a comfort scale, they’re somewhere in between the mouth-trays and the paint-on solutions.

All of these home teeth whitening kits usually work with hydrogen peroxide as the active bleaching ingredient. They’re all pretty effective but just how effective they are is really a function of how concentrated the hydrogen peroxide solution is. The concentration can vary from a low of 6% to a high of about 14% - which is about half of the concentration your dentist uses. That’s another reason why at home teeth whitening products take much longer than an office visit to your dentist.

If you don’t want to shell out your hard earned dough on a dentist, take heart, there are still several options you can do yourself to improve the brightness and whiteness of your smile. Over-the-counter solutions and natural remedies can be pretty effective. And you can expect to improve the whiteness of your teeth by three or four shades in as little as two weeks. So shop around a bit and try more than one product – and don’t be afraid to return something if it isn’t right for you. Here’s to a whiter smile.

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