Teeth whitening at home ?

IenjoyAbargain

Hi all,

Right, so my teeth are not all bad but I would really like them to be a tad whiter. After many years of smoking (stopped now!) they could really do with the attention.

I`m not so keen on forking out for the professional dentist stuff , so I was wondering if anyone can recommend anything that I could do at home? Is the stuff you buy from the chemist (boots or the like) any good or would you not bother?

Many thanks :cool:

Toothsmith

Don't bother.

If you don't want to pay for actual whitening in a safe professional environment, then just get them well cleaned there by either the dentist or preferably get him to refer you to the hygienist. This will make a huge difference straight away.

Over the counter stuff is useless. Internet stuff is potentially dangerous, as you'll never really know just what your getting.

IenjoyAbargain

Thank you Toothsmith, thats what I thought but just wanted to see what other people`s experiences are of the commercial stuff.

I have been to the dentist and had a scale and a polish recently which has helped indeed, but they still look ... don`t know..not as white as they have been.

One of my friends is a dental hygienist and said I would only need a couple of shades lighter(or something like that) and so I thought I might get away with a home kit , not because I don`t want the safe professional environment but I can`t justify the cost at the moment.

brook2jack

Toothsmith gave you the advice because the only thing which lightens teeth effectively is hydrogen peroxide or substances which liberate it. It is illegal in the UK , the EU and many other countries to sell tooth whitening kits which contain these substances.

Therefore if you buy a home kit either it will not work or it will be supplied illegally by people who know they are breaking the law.

Which have led campaigns to stop people such as amazon, e bay etc advertising kits (because of high number of people damaged by kits) with limited success, because of the number of sites springing uphttp://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/aug/20/illegal-tooth-whitening-online

Nixer

I'm having a procedure done with a cosmetic dentist and he has offered me tooth whitening using a kit which I'm tempted by. From what I gather he makes me a mouth tray and then I use the kit at home. Given that I can't really afford the in house option, is the kit a good way to go about it? And assuming it works how long are the results likely to last?

Mupette

Nixer wrote: »

I'm having a procedure done with a cosmetic dentist and he has offered me tooth whitening using a kit which I'm tempted by. From what I gather he makes me a mouth tray and then I use the kit at home. Given that I can't really afford the in house option, is the kit a good way to go about it? And assuming it works how long are the results likely to last?

That sounds like what my friend has done, it did make a difference to her.. but she can afford to do it.