How To Have Whiter Teeth - Bring Back that Smile -

Our teeth stain easily from tea, coffee, coca-cola, smoking and some of the many other substances we put in our mouths. Some of the worst staining can be blamed on tetracyclines, a group of antibiotics that we are sometimes prescribed.

Learn how to have whiter teeth without spending a fortune.

Regular brushing with toothpastes do not remove all the stains.

So how can be make our smiles bright and our teeth gleaming white again?

Regular teeth cleaning at the dentists is always a good idea. They have machines to get into every crevice that out own toothbrushes simply miss.

My own preference for stain removal on teeth is the regular use of Pearl Drops Tooth Polish. My dentist never recommended this product, because dentists think the tiny granules in Pearl Drops can damages tooth enamel.

I've used it for 30 odd years without loss of enamel so I think they might be wrong there.

If you have Pearl Drops Tooth Polish in your house, place a little bit on your forefinger and rub it gently with your thumb, and you will feel the granulation that so worried dentists.

Pearl Drops contains sodium bicarbonate which every housewife has in her cupboard and knows as baking soda.

Baking soda makes an excellent tooth whitener. If you just want a quick, cheap fix, brush your teeth with it. It is a salt so will taste disgusting.

You can make it more pleasant to apply if you mix a teaspoonful with a couple of mashed strawberries, and the really good thing about this mixture is that strawberries also are known for whitening teeth.

They contain malic acid which is an astringent which will remove surface discoloration from your teeth.

Try and leave the strawberry/sodium bicarbonate mix on your teeth for 5 minutes or so for maximum effect.

This method is great when learning how to have whiter teeth without breaking the bank.

There are very many whitening toothpastes on the market today. The vast majority of them contain sodium bicarbonate.

Some contain small amounts of hydrogen peroxide (or sometimes carbomide peroxide) which is a whitening agent.

It is hydrogen peroxide that is in the whitening treatment you receive from a dentist, but they generally use much higher concentrations than you will find in whitening toothpastes, and use laser lights to activate the bleach.

Whitening toothpastes usually take a couple of weeks use for you to start seeing a difference, partly because they use such a low dose of peroxide or sodium bicarbonate, and because, in the case of the peroxide especially, it is being brushed off before it has the chance to get to work.

Using whitening toothpastes on a regular basis, does however keep your smile whiter than using normal toothpastes alone.

If you want to have gleaming teeth that are really white, then your first choice should be a visit to the dentist.

He can offer a teeth whitening service, as outlined above, but it will be very expensive. Expect to pay upwards of $1,500 for this treatment.

More importantly, he can tell you if it's worth going to the expense and effort of trying a home teeth whitening product.

Teeth that are yellowed and stained can often be whitened again, but teeth that have greyed can't.

This is because the grey, that often happens with ageing (and you thought that only happened to hair!) is underneath the enamel, so nothing you put on top of the tooth can take it away.

Teeth whitening can help a little, because grey teeth can be yellowed and stained on the outside just like everybody else's, but you will never again have white teeth unless your dentist has some magical and no doubt furiously expensive treatment.

I think that there is such a treatment involving coating the teeth, but that is for dental surgeons, not for us at home.

I have a sneaking suspicion that people who write about how great home teeth whiteners are, are only saying so because they want to sell some product or other.

The other trouble with finding out what you need to know on the internet is that products change so often, so if you read somewhere about someone having a great experience with a particular product, or a bad experience, you may well find that information is out of date.

Teeth whiteners are relatively new on the market, and are constantly evolving and improving all the time.

For that reason, I am going to list here some of the more popular brands being sold today (November 2011).

With all home whitening kits that use peroxide, you have to be very careful to not get the peroxide on your gums, because it bleaches them too.

This can set up an irritation that can be extremely painful.

Also, if you have sensitive teeth, beware that all home whiteners irritate sensitive teeth. They are probably best not used on sensitive teeth at all, but if you really want to try them, cut short the session if your teeth start to hurt, wait a day or two, then try again.

If you are planning on using the Rembrandt 2-Hour Whitening Kit, please read the full instructions very carefully before you start.

Reading the comments from buyers over on Amazon, those people who followed the instructions to the letter had great success, and those who didn't ended up with painful teeth or gums.

This contains a hydrogen peroxide gel and an applicator to apply it to your teeth. It works, but be careful.

With this system you get a gelatin-look shield that sits over your teeth into which you put some whitening gel.

The manufacturer has chosen to not say what the active ingredient is.

Going by the feedback this product is receiving, it is gentle and whitens teeth wonderfully, which is what you want.

It also contains a gel pen, presumably for spot application.

This product is whitening strips, rather than overall teeth whiteners.

The nice thing about the Crest Whitestrips is that you wrap them round your teeth like a sticky plaster, and then get on with what you were doing, and that can include drinking.

You leave them on for half an hour or so, take them off, and you should see a noticeable difference.

Once again, it is important to make sure you do not get any of the Whitestrip on your gums as the hydrogen peroxide 10% can set up a reaction.

Basically the idea with this product is only to whiten your front teeth, and those are the only ones most people see anyway. It does seem to work well.

I hope something in this article has been of help in your quest to learn how to have whiter teeth.