It’s a little known fact that teeth whitening using peroxide (the teeth whitening ingredient used world-wide by dentists) has actually been around for nearly a century! Only in the last 20 years however has it really picked up in popularity, especially in the USA. Since 1989 when teeth whitening using custom trays was first published in scientific dental journals lots of research has been done on the safety aspect of whitening teeth, with the verdict that whitening your teeth is not only safe to tooth enamel and dentine, but is the best way of lightening the shade of your teeth without having to resort to more invasive dental procedures!
To understand how safe teeth whitening is, it helps to know a little about what stains teeth and how whitening gel works to lighten them:
How do teeth become dull, gray, or yellow?
When you eat and drink staining foods, such as; curry, red wine, tea, and coffee, or you smoke – the highly coloured organic molecules can enter into your teeth via microscopic pores in the enamel and underlying dentine. As more and more of these dark molecules build up within your teeth, they absorb light and give the tooth a darker or yellower appearance.
As you can imagine, these stains are within the teeth and can’t just be simply removed with brushing. This is where teeth whitening can help!
So how does the whitening gel get rid of these stains?
When you apply the whitening gel to your teeth (via trays, strips, or a pen) the small peroxide molecules pass easily through the micropores and come into contact with the staining molecules that have built up in your enamel and dentine and breaks down into active oxygen and water. The active oxygen is a powerful oxidising agent, this basically means that the large, dark staining molecules get broken down into smaller particles and turned white in colour – exactly like when you apply bleach when cleaning. The overall results is that your teeth look brighter and whiter!
If the gel works on stains, how come it doesn’t damage my teeth?
The great thing about peroxide based gels is that it can only work on organic stains and so doesn’t affect the hard tissues of your teeth (the enamel and dentine) or any restorative dental work you may have – that’s why peroxide based teeth whitening is the only type approved by international dental associations and offered by dentists worldwide.
Can whitening be dangerous?
When you drink a can of coke, or a fruit juice do you know that you are dissolving your tooth enamel slightly? That’s because these drinks have a pH (acidity) value of less than 5.5, the pH at which your teeth will start to dissolve! Some lower quality whitening products have pH values of less than 5.5 and so can cause ‘acid erosion’ if used for long periods of time.
It is for this reason that you need to select your whitening product carefully, and only buy from reputable companies – at Dentstore we only sell products that have a neutral gel pH to make sure that your teeth are not at risk.
