9 Facts About Professional Teeth Whitening You Need to Know

A bright, white smile looks healthy and feels fantastic. If you know your teeth look good, you’ll have the confidence to smile wide. But if your teeth are lacklustre, discoloured, and stained, it can hit your self-esteem hard. 

Teeth whitening is a great way to improve the look of your smile. Using a whitening treatment, you can shift deeply embedded stains and lighten your smile, giving it a natural-looking sparkle. 

With so many whitening products on the market today, it’s hard to know which treatments are the most effective and the safest. Before parting with any money, it’s vital to know as much as possible about what whitening entails. 

We’ve put together a quick teeth whitening guide with some facts you need to know about professional treatments. 

1. Your Teeth Have Pores

We’re all familiar with the idea that our skin is covered with many small pores that get filled with debris and dirt. You may not know, however, that your teeth also have pores. The pores in your teeth are much smaller than on your skin, so to the naked eye, they look perfectly smooth.

Just like those found on your skin, the pores on your teeth are absorbent. 

2. Your Teeth Become Discoloured With Age

Like so many other parts of your body, as you age, your smile changes. Thinning enamel is natural as you get older, but it means the darker dentin below starts to show through. When this happens, your teeth start to take on a yellowish colour. 

3. Lots Of Foods Can Stain Your Teeth

You’re probably aware that lots of lifestyle factors affect the colour of your teeth. If you’re a smoker, you’re likely to have yellow or even brown stains. But much of the food and drink you consume could discolour or stain your smile. In fact, it’s not even necessarily unhealthy items that cause the most staining. 

Coffee and tea are two common culprits. Along with this, beverages like red wine and cola are also likely to leave their mark. It might surprise you to learn that some fruit juices could also stain. 

It’s easy to understand why darker foods like soy sauce could leave a stain, but you may overlook curry, chilli, and tomato-based sauces. Other healthier foods that stain include dark berries and beetroot. 

4. Professional Teeth Whitening Is the Most Effective Option

Search online or scan the shelves of your local supermarket, and you’ll probably find several teeth-whitening options. From toothpaste to at-home whitening kits, the market is massive. 

Whitening toothpaste is helpful to an extent. These products usually have an abrasive ingredient added that helps lift some of the external stains. Unfortunately, they don’t cut deep, meaning they’ll never truly brighten your smile. The other problem is that overuse of abrasive toothpaste could harm your teeth. 

Shop-bought whitening kits contain similar ingredients to the professional kits you’ll find in a dental clinic. The main difference is that the active ingredients are much weaker in DIY kits due to legal restrictions. In terms of effectiveness, shop-bought kits are very limited. 

5. Professional Teeth Whitening Is the Safest Option

Although the dose of peroxide in a shop-bought product is much lower than in a professional treatment, they come with far greater risk. 

Professional whitening treatments are performed under supervision. Even at-home professional treatments like Enlighten and Boutique are safe because we’ll guide you through the process before you start. 

Not only this, but when you use a professional at-home treatment, you’ll have a custom-made tray to hold the whitening gel to your teeth. Because this is made to measure, it holds the whitening solution in place. 

With a DIY kit, there’s no custom-made tray and an increased chance that the solution may leak into other areas of your mouth and cause physical damage. 

Before you whiten your teeth using one of our treatments, we’ll assess your oral health. Any damaged or decayed teeth will need repair first, as the whitening treatment could harm them. Before using a DIY whitening treatment, nobody performs a checkup. 

6. There Are Two Main Types Of Professional Teeth Whitening Treatment

When whitening your teeth with us, you can choose from two types of treatment; in-clinic or at home. If you want to brighten your smile at home, we have two options; Enlighten and Boutique. For in-clinic treatments, we’ll use Philips Zoom!

Enlighten, and Boutique allow you to whiten your teeth from the comfort of your home. We’ll give you custom whitening trays to wear and the solutions. These treatments typically take around two weeks but provide great results. 

For a quicker process, Philips Zoom! uses a special laser to brighten your smile by up to eight shades in one 45-minute session. Alternatively, you can choose Philips at-home treatment. 

7. Whitening In the Evening Is Very Effective

After a whitening session, the pores of your teeth will open slightly. During this time, your teeth are more likely to absorb fresh stains.

For this reason, we always recommend using your whitening treatment in the evening or at night, as your teeth are less likely to come into contact with anything that could leave stains. 

8. You Can’t Whiten Veneers and Crowns

No teeth whitening solution, professional or otherwise, will work on any dental prosthetics such as crowns, veneers, or dentures. Similarly, we can’t alter the colour of any fillings or composite bonding. 

When placing prosthetics, we typically colour-match the materials used to ensure they look natural next to your other teeth. If we know you want a whitening treatment, we can plan accordingly. 

9. Enlighten Guarantees a B1 Shade

Enlighten is possibly the most popular whitening treatment available. The results achieved are unparalleled. In just two weeks, you can brighten your smile up to a Vita B1 shade. That’s the most natural shade of white possible. 

Using this treatment, you can whiten your teeth by 16 shades. Even the most discoloured teeth will see a big improvement. 

Professional Teeth Whitening In Surrey

Love Teeth has a choice of the best professional teeth whitening treatments available. With clinics in Chessington, Cheam, Sutton, Stonecot, and Worcester Park, we make it easy for you to get a smile you’ll love. 

Call us today to book your appointment.