How to get whiter teeth?

As we get older, teeth naturally darken due to wear of our enamel and thickening of the inner yellow layer of teeth called dentine. Certain foods (usually coffee/tea) and habits like smoking also stain the teeth further.

If there is a large amount of staining of the teeth, than a clean will remove these stains and lighten the tooth colour. If however the natural tooth colour is darker then a clean alone probably will not get the results you are after.

Below is a case example of significant staining followed by cleaning then followed by 30mins of in chair whitening.

Be careful of promises of Hollywood white teeth in a single session. Most patients will require more than one session of whitening to get to that level of whiteness or may look into veneers.

So in short do you need a clean/whitening - well it depends. Existing fillings will not whiten with bleaching so its best to discuss with your dentist.

We will follow up with more posts on take home whitening kits and different whitening options avaliable.