Teeth Whitening: What To Watch Out For

Bleaching your teeth can be a real hit or miss, can’t it? If you believe that’s the case then you might not realize how easy it actually can be to get a bright, white smile. The problem lies in the most common whitening products available and how poorly they actually work.

Teeth whitening is always best done in a dentist office like Really Smile Dentistry! Our Indianapolis dentist office is equipped to provide great professional results that are consistent, reliable, and really work. If you’re skeptical of teeth whitening we want to share some of the most common reasons that over-the-counter teeth whitening doesn’t work.

Whitening Gels Are Sensitive

Pick up a whitening kit at the drugstore and it probably uses a familiar system: whitening gel placed in trays that you wear in the evenings for a few weeks. While the basics of a tray and gel system are the traditional method of whitening teeth there’s a big problem with most commercial whitening kits: they don’t fit!

That might not seem like a big deal but in reality it’s a good way to ruin your whitening gel. Hydrogen peroxide the active ingredient in most whitening products, is very sensitive. While we do want it to break down into water and oxygen in your mouth (that’s what scrubs the stains away) we don’t want it to happen all at once!

Think about that bottle of peroxide in your medicine cabinet: it’s opaque, right? That’s because hydrogen peroxide is so unstable light can ruin it! And that’s not the only thing either: saliva breaks it down almost instantly! Whitening trays that don’t fit right are almost guaranteed to let saliva in, resulting in uneven, splotchy, or completely ineffective whitening.

The trays we use at our Indianapolis dentist office are custom build from an impression of your teeth. They’ll fit great, ensuring an even distribution of gel, and they also are designed to really seal the gel in, keeping saliva out completely!

Don’t Be Fooled By Alternative Treatments

There’s a reason hydrogen peroxide is the gold standard of teeth whitening: it works. Between it and carbamide peroxide they are the only substances that have delivered consistent, reliable results to patients who want genuinely whiter smiles.

Between hydrogen and carbamide peroxide you should definitely seek out the former. While both do work to whiten teeth, carbamide peroxide needs to first break down into hydrogen peroxide and urea. This results in far less hydrogen peroxide, making it less effective. Unfortunately, many over-the-counter whitening products use carbamide because of its increased level of stability. Hydrogen peroxide is also sensitive to sitting on the shelf for too long!

At Really Smile Dentistry we only use hydrogen peroxide gels. Ours are far stronger than the products you can buy over-the-counter because the products we use are applied under the supervision of trained professionals. You simply can’t expect the results we provide from a kit you buy at the store!

Watch Out For Gimmicks

There are a lot of ways whitening products try to entice you: LED lights, fancy packaging, dissolving strips, and heating items all promise to change the face of teeth whitening with their unique innovations. Do these products improve the at-home whitening process? Some might. But can they compete with the effectiveness of a simple tray and gel whitening procedure performed at the dentist? No.

All these products have one thing in common: they’re trying to counter the fact that the whitening products aren’t as strong. You might get some improved results but they still fall short of the application and precision of professional whitening at our Indianapolis dentist office.

Get Real Results On The First Try

Our advanced teeth whitening can create results you’ll see after just one appointment. It’s hard to beat that: just a couple of hours in the dental chair can get you a white smile you’ll be truly proud to show off. We take pride in the whitening results we deliver to our patients and we’re excited to give you the chance to experience them as well!

Don’t spend time and money chasing down the perfect whitening system when we can get you the results you’re looking for right in Indianapolis. Call Really Smile Dentistry today to get teeth whitening you can rely on!

You can reach us at 317-597-8748 or you can request an appointment by filling out our online form. We look forward to seeing you soon!