Over the Counter and Household Teeth Whitening Techniques and Products
Everyone wants to have teeth as white as celebrities, but there are a lot of options you may not know about. We will be going over a few ways to whiten teeth at home.
There are a lot of products that are sold over the counter that can really help to whiten your teeth. These include the ones widely advertised, and the alternatives sold at the store. Chief among these are the whitening strips. The brand doesn’t necessarily matter, but it is normally a good idea to compare the ingredients (both active and inactive, but pay particular attention to the active ingredients) in the off-brand to the name brand products. These are the ones you pull out of the packaging and mold to the shape of your teeth. They normally are applied every night.
There are also a lot of different products that are sitting around the house, some that are actually even in toothpaste. One common one is baking soda and lemon juice mixed into a combined paste. Baking soda is advertised as something that essentially scrubs out dirt. So you are going to want to use baking soda as an abrasive, scrubbing the teeth actively to actually get the effect you want. The lemon juice can be used when turning your teeth whiter, instead of scrubbing the dirt away, instead lemon juice actually just changes the color to be brighter. Use 4 teaspoons of baking soda, and add lemon juice as needed until you have made a paste. Mix and leave for a moment, then before using, wipe your teeth. Use a toothbrush to apply to your teeth, and leave there for a minute.
There are also products you can get that are effective used daily over a long period of time. However, there are a lot of different toothpaste brands, and all of them claim to be the best. All of the ingredients used in toothpaste are used to achieve different goals. Some of them are used for their anti-decay effects, some fight plaque, but we are looking for the ones that can whiten. These are just like the baking soda/lemon juice paste used above in type of ingredients. Which means they have two major categories of ingredients. The first is abrasives, the second is bleaching products. The bleaching agent is almost always hydrogen peroxide, but even when it isn’t, it’s carbamide peroxide, which breaks down into hydrogen peroxide. The only difference is carbamide acts quicker initially, but over the long-term have similar effects as each other. Abrasives include calcium and magnesium carbonate, as well as hydrated aluminum oxides. Remember that with these products abrasion is important, and electric toothbrushes can be very effective at helping your teeth stay clean and your mouth stay healthy.
This article is part of an ongoing series where we cover teeth whitening. In the next installments we will be going over preventing damage to tooth health, and information on what causes yellowing and decay.
