Whitening Best Practices
Whether you want to look your best for an upcoming wedding, class reunion or major meeting – or you just want a sparkling white and confident smile every day – here’s what you should know about whitening treatment best practices.
Whitening Best Practices with Traditional Braces
This section may as well have been titled “DON’T whiten while you have traditional braces!”
Even though we talked about how intrinsic yellowing is bleached from the inside, this bleach still has to be held against the tooth for 30 to 60 minutes. If you have traditional braces, the bracket and wires will get in the way. Any extrinsic stain removal would also be rendered ineffective by your braces.
If you currently have braces, we recommend waiting till your course of treatment is complete. After your braces come off, whitening your teeth can be the cherry on top of a beautifully straight smile!
Whitening Best Practices with Invisalign®
One of the fantastic things about Invisalign is that you can whiten your teeth by using the Invisalign trays. Granted, you’ll need to obtain the appropriate whitening gel. Over-the-counter options that have an active ingredient ratio of between 10 to 20% are recommended, as stronger doses can cause severe tooth sensitivity. Of course, if you want the best, we offer Philips Zoom whitening gel that can be used with Invisalign.
Once you have acquired the appropriate whitening gel, you’ll need to clean your Invisalign tray completely before applying a few droplets of the gel. Make sure to apply the gel to the front portion of your tray, so it’ll be contacting the front of your teeth.
Since our Invisalign trays are custom-molded for your teeth, this will ensure that the gel is completely spread out to cover everything. Once you’ve inserted the tray, keep it in for 15 minutes and then you can remove for cleaning. You’ll also want to spend at least a minute rinsing out your mouth completely.
This form of tooth whitening can be repeated two times a week until your teeth have reached the desired brightness.
Whitening Best Practices with Retainers
If you have a clear orthodontic retainer, then you can use the same process as with an Invisalign tray to whiten your teeth. But what about someone who has a fixed retainer? Can they still get their teeth whitened?
If you have a permanent retainer, then you can still whiten your teeth without any issues since the gel is only directly applied to the front of the teeth. The wire attached to the back of your teeth will not interfere with any teeth whitening procedure that we’d recommend.
You’ll Leave Smiling…We Guarantee It!
Here at BRO, we want each of our patients to be so confident in their new smile that they just can’t stop smiling! If you want a smile that is brighter than your favorite movie star’s, you don’t need to go to Los Angeles. Come visit us in Asheville, Hendersonville or Brevard.