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Everywhere we look now we see people with bright, luminescent smiles and teeth. Rarely do we see anyone with yellow, discolored teeth on TV anymore.
Some of the actors have smiles so white and bright that it looks fake and you know they had their teeth whitened.
The sitcom Friends even did a spoof on teeth whitening where one of the characters teeth were so white after treatment that they glowed in the dark like they were irradiated.
So, what actually is teeth whitening, why is it so popular, and what kind of results can one expect?
Basically, teeth whitening is a controlled oxygen bleaching of the tooth enamel. It works better on some than others and not everyone is a good candidate (kind of like with laser eye surgery).
It will not work on any fake teeth like porcelain veneers, ceramic implants, etc. It only works on real teeth.
The main ingredient is either carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide which are both oxidizers and will bleach tooth enamel.
Over the counter kits and products generally have a low percentage of the main oxidizing ingredient (usually in the range of 2 to 6%).
This is minimally effective at best. We use a much stronger controlled solution and usually add to this a high power blue or white plasma or laser light to hyper increase the oxidizing activity of the treatment.
The difference is that the over the counter kits and products may, after many treatments, whiten your teeth 1 to 2 shades whereas the in office treatments will in a hour or so whiten the teeth 8 to 14 shades.
This is an enormous difference.
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