A beautiful, bright white smile can make a big impact on your self-esteem and is one of the most common cosmetic changes people make. One walk through your local drugstore and you can see just how popular teeth whitening at home has become. You can also become quickly overwhelmed with all the whitening options available. While your dentist offers professional whitening treatments, at-home whitening products offer you more flexibility and allow you to whiten in the comfort of your own home. So, what are the differences between each whitening system and how do you know which one will work to achieve your goals? Let’s take a closer look at what’s available and what the real differences are.
Teeth Whitening is a Billion Dollar Industry
Teeth whitening is a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide, with money being spent both at the dental office, as well as on home whitening products. To give you an idea just how big this industry is, let’s look at a few statistics when it comes to teeth whitening:
- Over $3.2 billion spent annually on whitening toothpaste
- Just under $1 billion spent on whitening strips each year
- Americans spend $1.4 billion on at-home teeth whitening systems
- Worldwide, over $11 billion is spent each year on at-home and dental whitening products and procedures
- Consumers report 63.8 percent noticeable whitening after at-home treatments and 82.5 percent noticeable whitening after professional treatments
- When it comes to appearance, 99.7 percent believe an attractive smile is important
- A person is 58 percent more likely to get a job offer with a white smile
Home Teeth Whitening Products
When it comes to at-home whitening products, your local drug store offers a wide variety of products to choose from. Everything from whitening toothpastes to home whitening tray systems. But not all at-home whitening products are equal and each work in a different way. To better understand how you can whiten your teeth at home, it is best to understand how each product works. Let’s take a closer look.
- Whitening Toothpaste – All toothpastes help to remove surface stains and whiten teeth. When you brush your teeth, the brushing action, combined with mild abrasives in the toothpaste, helps to scrub away stains on the surface of your teeth. These can be caused by what you eat, drink, or smoking. Most whitening toothpastes do not contain any bleaching agent, so they work solely by scrubbing away surface stains. While some do contain small levels of bleaching agent, the agent isn’t very strong and doesn’t stay in contact with the surface of your teeth long enough to provide any bleaching effect. Whitening toothpaste can typically lighten the color of your teeth by one shade.
- Whitening Rinses – Relatively new to the market are whitening rinses. Like traditional mouthwash, these products help to freshen breath and reduce plaque. They also contain a bleaching agent, such as hydrogen peroxide. Most advise swishing the product around your mouth for 60 seconds, twice a day. They also advise it can take up to 12 weeks to see any noticeable results. Like toothpaste, however, whitening rinses do not stay in contact with your teeth long enough to really achieve optimal whitening.
- Whitening Strips – Whitening strips are thin pieces of material coated with a peroxide-based gel. These strips adhere to your teeth and remain in place for 30 minutes or more, for an average of two weeks. While these strips can whiten your teeth up to four shades, the results can be splotchy. Whitening strips are unable to place the gel in contact with crevices between teeth and saliva production often causes the strips to slip, breaking contact with the teeth. Because of this, the peroxide-based gel is unable to achieve optimal contact, leaving your whitening results falling short.
Custom-fit teeth whitening trays help to ensure whitening gel reaches all the surfaces of your teeth while helping to protect your gums from contact with the gel. Visit SportingSmiles to learn more about our high-quality whitening trays.
- Home Whitening Trays – At-home, over-the-counter whitening trays offer a one-size-fits-all tray that you fill with a whitening gel before placing in your mouth. This is similar to the way your dentist whitens your teeth in-office, but the difference is that this tray does not conform to your individual bite. Because this tray does not fit correctly, uniform gel distribution and contact with the surface of your teeth is not optimal. It also increases the risk of gel coming into contact with your gums, causing irritation and discomfort.
- Low Strength Gel – Teeth whitening gel has a shelf-life and is sensitive to hot/cold and sunlight. When you order a kit online it can take months from the time it was manufactured to get to you. It also was most likely not stored correctly. If it was shipped from overseas it would have came on a hot ship and then went into a hot warehouse. The strength that the gel had at one point is not lessened. This affects how well your teeth will whiten. You want to know how old your gel is and where it came from. It’s best to not buy from a large online seller to make sure you know the history of your whitening gel.
Professional Teeth Whitening with Your Dentist
When you go to your dentist for a whitening treatment, chances are you will receive a thorough teeth cleaning first. This helps to remove dental plaque and surface stains (If you are whitening at home, you should consider a dental cleaning first). After cleaning, the hygienist paints on a rubber dam material around your gums that help protect them from contact with the whitening agent. After this is in place, the dentist paints on the whitening gel. This gel has a higher concentration of bleaching agent than found inside home whitening kits. In some treatments, you are then exposed to a special light that quickly activates the gel, speeding up the whitening process. These treatments are often able to achieve up to eight shades lighter. Whitening treatments at your dentist can range in cost from $200 to $3000, depending on the system used.
In addition to these in-chair treatments, many dentists offer home-whitening kits with custom-fit teeth whitening trays. These trays are made from a mold of your teeth and contain higher concentration whitening gel. Once your dentist makes your whitening tray, they send you home with the trays and gel. This treatment method can also achieve up to eight shades whiter. Through your dentist, these whitening trays and whitening gel can cost between $200 – $500.
Why Not Get the Benefits of Both?
At-home whitening products offer a much more economical and affordable way to achieve teeth whitening. However, their results are nowhere near as dramatic as those available from your dentist. Luckily, for you, there is good news. You don’t have to spend a fortune to achieve the same results as your dentist provides.
SportingSmiles offers the same custom-fit whitening trays and high concentration gel that you get from your dentist at a fraction of the price Starting at $79. Using our patented self-impression kit, you follow simple steps to create a mold of your mouth. You send this mold back to our dental lab, and our dental technicians create the same high-quality trays that your dentist’s lab creates. We then return the trays, along with whitening gel, to you at your home. This gives you the freedom to whiten your teeth in the comfort of your home and to whiten around your schedule and your timeframe.
