Little White Lie #1

The Lie: Whitening toothpastes are highly effective at whitening your teeth.

The Truth: No one would argue that you shouldn’t brush your teeth regularly and whitening toothpaste certainly couldn’t hurt. Brushing your teeth is vital to the health of your teeth as well as being a basic tenet of good hygiene. However, the ingredients in whitening toothpastes just don’t spend enough time in direct contact with your teeth to provide the kind of results that people tend to believe that they have.

Your saliva prevents the whitening agents in these toothpastes from being in contact long enough to do any real good in terms of tooth whitening. The active ingredients in these toothpastes are also usually present in such low concentrations that even if they did spend enough time in contact with your teeth, they still wouldn’t be terribly effective. They’re a great idea, but whitening toothpastes really don’t do anything that regular toothpastes don’t.

Little White Lie #2

The Lie: Having your dentist whiten your teeth is the best way to get a brighter, whiter smile.

The Truth: Yes, it is true that your dentist can help you to get whiter teeth. However, you don’t have to go to your dentist to get the same effect. The whitening agent which your dentist uses is almost invariably either Carbamide Peroxide or Hydrogen Peroxide: the same whitening agents used in do-it-yourself tooth whitening systems.

The degree to which any tooth whitening procedure is effective is dependent on how concentrated the whitening gel is and the amount of time that the gel spends in contact with the surface of the teeth.

You can get the same results by using a whitening solution with a high concentration of peroxide for a short time (this is the general rule with a whitening procedure performed by a dentist) or using a whitening solution containing a lower concentration of peroxide for a longer time (the way that at home teeth whitening systems usually work).

Of course, there is one other thing to consider here: price. The cost of an office visit and whitening procedure performed by your dentist is far higher than the cost of a whitening treatment which you can administer yourself at home. The results are the same, but the price of doing it yourself is usually 25% or less than the cost of having your dentist perform the procedure. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise to you that more and more people are choosing home tooth whitening systems.

Little White Lie #3

The Lie: All tooth whitening products are the same.

The Truth: The quality and the efficacy of different tooth whitening products varies greatly, as do the methods of application. Some of these products work better than others and some really can’t be said to work at all, if the truth is to be told.

The difference generally comes down to the ingredients used in the product. Different whitening gels differ in their concentration of active ingredients – and thus in the degree to which they are effective. Before making a purchase, you should look at the different products; some are made for specific types and levels of staining.

Little White Lie #4

The Lie: Bleaching your teeth damages the teeth and the gums.

The Truth: Tooth bleaching does not harm your teeth or your gums. The whitening agent is applied directly to your teeth and a process of oxidation begins which dissolves the deposits of organic materials which stain or discolor teeth. No harm is done to the teeth or the gums – it is possible that the teeth may temporarily become sensitive, though this is a short-lived side effect which can be eliminated by reducing the time that the agent is applied to the teeth.

It’s possible that these whitening agents can irritate the gums, but this is typically due to poorly fitting whitening trays that cause the gums to come in contact with the whitening product. For this reason, it is highly recommended to use at home whitening systems that use custom whitening trays.

Little White Lie #5

The Lie: Whitening strips are the best way to whiten your teeth.

The Truth: Our teeth are as unique as we are. This means that it’s impossible to design a whitening strip which can actually maintain contact with the entire surface of our teeth. Even in a best case scenario, these strips can only help whiten the front surface of your teeth, with grooves in the teeth and the gaps between your teeth left unaffected by the whitening strip. What these strips cause is uneven tooth whitening, leaving a striped appearance, with stains apparent on the parts of the teeth which they don’t cover. Many consider this to actually be worse than the original problem!

Little White Lie #6

The Lie: Thermoform trays are just as effective as custom-fitted whitening trays.

The Truth: Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Just like whitening strips, these trays don’t provide a perfect fit for your teeth; it’s like trying to wear dentures made for someone else. A custom-fitted whitening tray, however, will conform to your teeth and produce even whitening as well as reducing the potential for irritation if the gums since they reduce the amount of whitening gel which can leak out.

Little White Lie #7

The Lie: The paint on tooth whitening products are the easiest and therefore the best at home tooth whitening products

The Truth: The paint-on whiteners are definitely easy to use, but unfortunately they’re not effective. They have the same fatal flaw as whitening toothpastes. Your saliva washes away the whitening agents, meaning that the whiteners aren’t left in contact with the surface of your teeth for a long enough time to do much, if anything to whiten them. The whitening agents in these products is also present in a very low concentration so as to prevent irritation – so even if they did spend more time in contact with your teeth, they are of very little use. At best, these paint on tooth whitening products leave you with very limited whitening results and have an uneven, unnatural look.

There are other products of this type which don’t really whiten at all, being nothing more than a cover-up which does nothing to remove stains.

Little White Lie #8

The Lie: Whitening products which use electroluminescence are more effective, since they activate the tooth whitening agents in the gel

The Truth: As it happens, these products are neither new and high tech nor are they effective. Electroluminescence may look impressive, but it’s the same technology used in many children’s toys and to provide back lighting for cell phones. The electroluminescence definitely looks cool, but does nothing to make the whitening agents work better – it is a marketing ploy and nothing but.

Little White Lie #9

The Lie: Tooth bleaching produces the same results for everybody.

The Truth: Everyone’s teeth are different and so are the stains which they have. Some stains are more difficult to remove than others with bleaching. Yellowish stains are the easiest to bleach, with brownish stains being somewhat more difficult and grayish stains being more difficult still.

Little White Lie #10

The Lie: If you swallow tooth whitening gel it can result in internal injuries.

The Truth: There’s no way to whiten your teeth without swallowing a little gel. No matter which whitening product you use, it’s going to happen. The only side effect is the strange taste that these gels have; though there is no risk of injury from swallowing a little tooth whitening gel. Obviously, it’s not recommended to drink the gel in large quantities, but swallowing the small amounts used in tooth whitening procedures isn’t going to hurt anyone.