The best way to maintain natural teeth whitening is to use prevention.

Drink plenty of water throughout the day, especially with meals, which reduces tooth discoloration. Ask for a large glass of water with your coffee. Drink water after meals. Protect your teeth with a mouth guard, as teeth turn yellow faster.

In some cultures, it is common to use lemon to remove tooth stains.

When you purchase custom-made trays, you have a whitening system that allows you to permanently change the color of your teeth for the rest of your life.

Whitening is never permanent because it works by penetrating the porous teeth and oxidizing the organic tissue between the enamel bars. Our hands turn yellow as we age and break through the enamel bars, so even if you are happy with your results now, they will change in a few years. With custom-made trays from your dentist, all you have to do is apply the gel and insert the trays again for a few days to lighten the staining to the color you want.

It is the safest method because with custom-made trays, the gel will only stick to your teeth, not your gums. By the way, if you already have Invisalign aligners, you’re in luck. Invisalign inadvertently offers the best whitening trays because of the unique way they’re made. Dentists and dental labs print their own trays, which aren’t as precise as the laser-cut ones from the digital model.

Some causes:

• Biology: Adult teeth are naturally grayer and more yellow than baby teeth. So many people whiten their teeth these days and see those sparkling white teeth in magazines that we forget that teeth are not naturally white.
• Staining: Your teeth may also appear yellow due to staining from years of drinking wine, tea, coffee, etc. By rinsing with water while eating and immediately after eating and drinking, you can do a lot to protect the color of your teeth.
• Aging: This type of yellowing is much deeper than the superficial staining caused by drinking coffee or wine. As we age, the organic tissue deep within the teeth yellows. In this case, it is not the teeth themselves that are yellow, but what is deep within the tooth that then breaks down and gives the tooth a yellow color.

If your teeth appear yellow when you look in the mirror, it is likely a combination of these three factors that is completely normal and nothing to worry about.

There are a million ways to whiten your teeth at the mall, at the dentist, and even at home.

There are several methods, including:

Whitening toothpaste:

“Whitening toothpaste” is a bit different than you think. The toothpaste only cleans your teeth superficially by being more abrasive than regular toothpaste, so it can remove stains on your teeth, but not the underlying color of your teeth.

Pros:

Great for removing discoloration on your teeth. Don’t use more than once a week to protect your teeth. Look for an ingredient called Citroxin; use Rembrandt Color Toothpaste with Citroxin.

Risks:

Whitening toothpaste can cause sensitivity, be too abrasive on your teeth, and cause gum recession. Don’t use it more than once a week. Brush gently using proper technique and follow up with your dentist.

Professional whitening at the dentist’s office:

You’ll come in for a few times for about an hour each time. A high concentration of peroxide is applied to your teeth and a light is used, which is supposed to speed up the chemical reaction and whiten them.

Pros:

If you need a quick whitening for an upcoming event, this might be a good option. In theory, since the dentist is present, you reduce your risk of tooth damage.

Risks:

We’re not fans of these light systems. At best, they’re safe, but they won’t give you the results of wearing custom white trays or bands. At worst, speeding up the chemical reaction damages the tooth, which can lead to premature aging and yellowing, and possibly require future dental work after the teeth have been damaged prematurely.

Custom whitening trays:

For best results, we recommend trays, which are custom-made by your dentist after taking your teeth measurements. After you squirt hydrogen peroxide gel into the trays, they’ll pop out in your mouth. The trays hold the whitening gel in place, contouring to the 3D surfaces of your teeth and keeping the gel away from your gums where it can cause harm.

Pros:

You’ll get the best results in the most cost-effective way possible. Once you get these trays, you can whiten your teeth for the rest of your life (assuming your teeth don’t move). You can add peroxide gel to the trays and they can be worn for a few hours or overnight.

Risks:

If you use too strong a gel and leave the trays on too long, you run the risk of the hydrogen peroxide penetrating too deeply into the tooth, which can damage the pulp (the next layer inside the tooth, inside the tooth). Children are especially at risk because they have larger areas of pulp relative to the size of their developing teeth. Damage to the tissue can cause tooth death, tooth pain, or sensitivity.

Whitening Strips:

The active ingredient in whitening strips is carbamide peroxide, which is an effective teeth whitener.

Whitening strips are small pieces of flexible plastic called polyethylene, each flexible strip is coated with a bleaching gel containing hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide.

You take each strip and place it around your teeth; one strip for the top and one for the bottom. The peroxide gel is now placed in the strips against the teeth, so it can seep into the teeth to lighten them.

White strips work to whiten teeth, but often give uneven results. Since the strips are two-dimensional, they do a poor job of reaching the curves between teeth, which can make your teeth appear whiter on their flat surfaces, but more yellow at the edges. If you have crooked teeth, even results will be difficult if not impossible to achieve.

Pros:

They are readily available at drugstores and on Amazon, easy to use, and you get results within a few days or weeks. Many people may consider it a “pro” that you shouldn’t see your dentist to get them, but if you haven’t been to the dentist in a while and you have a cavity and the bleaching material gets into the cavity, it can be excruciatingly painful.

Risks:

Whitening strips can be dangerous because they are not specially fitted, so the bleaching chemicals come into contact with the gums and other tissues in the mouth. When the whitening strips come into contact with other living tissue, you will have reactions; and that is an acceleration of the aging process. By using the trays you make yourself or with the whitening strips, you are keeping them oxidized against living tissue which causes an unsafe reaction and produces free radicals in the mouth.