5 Common Teeth Whitening Mistakes

Everyone wants a beautiful, bright, and healthy smile. However, some of our favorite habits like drinking coffee and wine, stand in the way of keep our pearly whites their brightest. There are many fantastic products and methods available to help you achieve the smile of your dreams Make sure you avoid the 5 most common mistakes when it comes to at-home whitening.

1. Baking soda: while baking soda has a ton of wonderful applications in the home, overuse of this powerful scrubber can weaken the enamel on certain areas of your teeth.
2. Fruit acids: often times you will see recommendations for using a fruit acid such as lemon juice or apple cider vinegar as an ingredient in home whitening, very often they will also recommend using these acids in addition to baking soda. These ingredients on your teeth will lead to enamel erosion, which will increase sensitivity in your teeth as well as put you at an elevated risk for cavities.
3. Ill-fitting trays: using high concentration bleaching gels with trays that aren’t customized your teeth can result in irritation to your gums and. Custom trays provide pockets to hold the bleaching gel close to your teeth but form a seal to protect your gums.
4. Using whitening toothpastes daily: many whitening toothpastes that boast fast results have abrasive materials in their ingredient lists. Although using these products as a short term solution may be ok, overusing them can result in increased sensitivity and erosion of the enamel.
5. Dirty Mouth: the best time to start using whitening products would be after a visit to the dentist to make sure your teeth are healthy and also to have them professionally cleaned. Using at home whitening products, you want to make sure you’re applying them after giving your teeth a good brush and floss, you don’t want to have a debris and a coating on your teeth preventing the bleaching solution from penetrating and working it’s best.