Bleaching! Break Down My Options Please!!!!
There are soooooo many options out there when it comes to teeth whitening... Toothpaste, mouthwash, whitening strips, whitening trays, blue light, or no blue light? Professional-in-office treatments or just go for it at home?
The questions that you need to ask yourself are:
How soon do you need them to be white?
How much do you want to spend to get them there?
We always recommend the most conservative approach. Slow and steady wins the race.
One thing you need to know and consider before bleaching, though, is this:
Dentistry does not bleach.
If you have crowns or white fillings on any of your front teeth, the color of those restorations will not change.
The natural tooth structure around the fillings will bleach, leaving the filling the same color.
This is good news if your filling is whiter than your tooth, but not if it’s more yellow. If it’s important enough to you, you might consider bleaching first and having your filling replaced to match.
The same goes for a crown. Say you have a single crown on an anterior tooth that shows when you smile. The teeth next to that tooth will bleach, but the crown will remain the same color.
This is also important if you plan on having a crown or filling done on a front tooth in the FUTURE. It’s always best to bleach your teeth FIRST.
Bleach them to the shade that you desire, and then have the filling done to match.
Once you’ve made it past those first steps of knowledge, here are the bleaching options that you have to choose from...
In-office bleaching
...is the most expensive, and it’s harder to control your sensitivity level. BUT...it is much quicker. It’s usually completed in one or two treatments.
Most offices send you home with professionally made bleaching trays afterward, which are made specifically for your mouth. These trays are used for maintenance and touch-ups.
Nearly all of us go back to drinking coffee, tea, wine, etc. So, it’s important to be able to maintain your bright smile after the initial bleaching is done.
We recommend in0office bleaching if you’re getting married next week or have a glamour photoshoot tomorrow. :)
Home Bleaching
...is accomplished over a one to two-week period.
You can bleach multiple days in a row if you’re teeth don’t become too sensitive.
Patients usually tend to bleach for two or three days in a row, though, and then need to take a break for a day or two. The teeth can become sensitive.
To help this sensitivity, ACT fluoride mouthwash is very helpful.
It’s important to understand that everyone’s teeth bleach at different paces and to different levels of white.
The key is to go at your own pace, according to your own preferences and tolerance levels. Try not to compare yourself to others.
If you bleach consistently for one to two weeks, you will reach your optimum whitening level.
You can then touch them up every three months or so by bleaching for one or two days.
Again, it’s all up to your preference and how much stain-causing food and beverages you consume. Bleach them until you’re happy.
After two weeks, though, you must come to grips with the fact that your teeth are probably as white as they’re going to get. Don’t become too obsessive.
So, what type of at-home bleaching should you choose?
1. Your honest dental office can make custom trays for you to take home without performing the whole in-office treatment.
This option is ideal but is the most expensive at-home option.
Trays tend to run about $200-$300, and the tubes of bleach are $10-$20 each. Once you have the trays made, though, you will have them forever and can just purchase the tubes of bleach from your dental office as you need more.
There are products out there on the market that offer over-the-counter trays, but we do not recommend them. If they are not custom formed to your teeth, they’re pretty worthless.
They don’t allow the bleach to flow into the detailed grooves and spaces in between. Saliva build up all around inside them. You may as well just swish with some whitening mouthwash. They become a big, drooly mess in your mouth.
Separate top and bottom trays are ideal. They are best if they are made to be form-fitted specifically to your teeth by your honest dental office.
Whitening pens make better sense than these over-the-counter trays. With pens, you can paint the bleach directly onto the teeth and crevices and then use a blue light if you’d like.
Even with over-the -counter whitening pens, though, we still believe that there’s a better option.
We have found that the most reasonable and effective option is the over-the-counter, form-fitting Crest Whitestrips.
2. Crest Whitestrips
These have proven to be the tried and true favorite over the years. The whitestrips form to your teeth. You can also run your fingernail around to guide them into the crevices in between.
They have different strength options according to your sensitivity level and are not too expensive. They usually come with 7-20 strips, made for both top and bottom.
If you’re going to be a forever bleacher though, it may be worthwhile to stop and take the time to add up the expense. Each time you want to bleach, you will have to purchase them again. How much will you be spending on the Crest Whitestrips each time?
Maybe it would be worth it to purchase the custom trays from your honest dental office??
Crest Whitestrips range from $20-$60 for the 1-3 week supply.
3. There are many at-home kits that offer bleaching using a blue light. Here is what you need to know about that amazing blue light.
It’s the BLEACH that does the bleaching, not the light.
We haven’t seen the at-home blue lights add any significant value to the whitening factor as of yet. The blue light just claims to make the bleaching process FASTER, not whiter.
They’re fun to use, though, so why not? Use one if you wish. Just know that your teeth will bleach without one too.
What about whitening toothpaste?
Here’s the thing about whitening toothpastes...They don’t usually have an actual bleaching agent in them.
Whitening toothpaste mostly contains abrasives, similar to the polish that we use during your dental cleanings.
So, it only removes the speckled surface stains caused by coffee, tobacco, tea, etc. Those stains are important to remove too, but the toothpaste doesn’t actually help BLEACH the soaked-in yellow color of the teeth as a whole.
Whitening toothpaste is better used for maintenance than for actual bleaching and whitening.
But, they’re not quite a SODA favorite. They’re too abrasive.
If you use them, please use them sparingly, and choose the most natural and basic whitening toothpaste that you can find. Just like your food.
Don’t get too caught up on what toothpaste to use though. It’s more about physically cleaning your teeth than what toothpaste you use in the process.
Just choose what tastes best to you.
What about whitening mouthwash?
Whitening mouthwash is a different story than whitening toothpaste.
Whitening mouthwash usually contains hydrogen peroxide which will help maintain your bright smile after initial bleaching.
Hydrogen peroxide also whitens the teeth on it's own. It is just a slower and more gradual process. It’s a great option for people who really don’t want to put much effort into bleaching but still desire whiter teeth.
Another plus to this mouthwash, is that hydrogen peroxide also has a healing factor to it too. It is, therefore, helpful for gum tissue health as well!
Act Whitening Mouthwash with Xylitol is the SODA all-time favorite mouthwash.
It has fluoride to help with tooth sensitivity and cavity prevention. It has hydrogen peroxide for whitening and gum health. It has the almighty Xylitol natural sweetener that actually controls plaque buildup.
It’s the BEST! It does EVERYTHING!
Can you damage your teeth by bleaching them?
It would take a lot to damage your teeth, but it is possible.
Just listen to what your teeth tell you. If they are becoming sensitive and telling you to stop, stop. Give them a break. Go easy on them.
It’s not the enamel that you are likely to damage. It’s more likely to be the nerve inside of your tooth that you will affect.
So just choose the slow and steady route, as always. Be a patient patient. Don’t get obsessive. Listen to the signs, and you’ll be just fine.
It’s best not to brush right after you take the bleaching agent off. Instead, rinse your mouth with warm water and rub the bleaching agent off with your finger.
It’s also a good idea to rinse with some fluoride mouthwash afterward as well. This will help with sensitivity. You can find our SODA favorite basic fluoride mouthwashes in our Product Advice section.
If your teeth get sensitive
As we just said above, the first thing you should do when your teeth get sensitive is to stop bleaching them. Give them a break.
Sometimes the teeth become so sensitive that they ache by themselves or ache when the air hits them. The best thing you can do at this point is to get yourself the fluoride mouthwash we mentioned.
Rinse once a day, for one minute, with that anti-cavity mouthwash such as ACT. This mouthwash is different than the anti-gingivitis types such as Listerine, so be sure that you find the anti-cavity type in our Product Advice section.
The reason our teeth become sensitive to bleaching is this:
When you bleach your teeth, the bleaching process opens up and exposes the tubules in your enamel and root surfaces. These tubules reach right into the center of your tooth where your nerve is, so they carry any cold or air stimuli right to that nerve.
The extra amount of fluoride in the SODA recommended mouthwash helps this sensitivity by coating your enamel and root surfaces again, filling in those tubules.
Extra tips for bleaching:
Floss before bleaching
Brush WITHOUT fluoride toothpaste before bleaching
Don’t leave the bleach on all night long. The bleach is stronger these days and usually designed for 30min, 45min, or a couple of hours max.
**Our Product Advice section has an entire section dedicated just to Whitening Products. There you will find our SODA favorites and why. We broke down the options for you to reduce your overwhelming shopping confusion!
Check it out! We hope this helps!
Though it would be best if we did, we’ll never claim to know it all, all of the time. NO ONE knows it all! We do claim honesty, though, and we sincerely want to help as many people as we can! Our patients have maintained beautifully, following our conservative recommendations :)
So, thanks so much for reading and letting us spill our SODA! Remember to take the time to find your HONEST DENTIST, and be sure to browse around our links and follow us on social media for answers to more of your exciting dental questions, like:
