Have you ever dreamed of having white, attention-catching, perfect " Hollywood " smile! If yes, know that you are not all alone. This may shake you up that an estimated 10 million Americans spend a whopping $1.7bn just on tooth-whitening products and techniques/ services almost every year and no wonder that the figure may still go up in coming decades!

Tooth whitening is the commonest cosmetic service offered by dentists, and there are also skyrocketing numbers of OTC (over-the-counter) tooth-whitening products to select from. One would be curious to know that how years of coffees, wines, sodas and other unsightly stains can be easily removed. Do you know all these can be quick, safe, and with minimal uncomfortableness.

The Basic Ideas for tooth whitening

Before getting into the points of tooth-whitening, let us glance on to meet the enemies. Why the tooth becomes stained anyway?

Each of the teeth is composed of some inner layer called as dentin and harder outer enamel layer that protect the teeth. When anyone puts any stuff in the mouth -- foods, cigarette smokes, coffees, etc. -- another layer eventually forms on top of an enamel layer. Essentially, the foreign materials accumulate forming a pellicle film onto the enamel layer. A dentist cleans away this film, by scraping and some chemical treat. Even brushing the teeth can eliminate some of it – to brush with the abrasive toothpaste would clean the tooth in the same fashion of scrubbing with some abrasive pads cleaning a dish. Whitening toothpaste is designed to work even more difficult on this layer.

The trouble is, as this pellicle layer seats on the teeth for years together, the foreign material would get into the enamel. The enamel layer is composed of hydroxyapatitecrystals that build microscopic hexagonal rods. In other words, the enamel is porous, that means a stainingagent can work its way down into the tooth, where one can not simply abrade them away. The deeper stains are fundamentally harmless, but many of us discover them unattractive.

Tooth whitening agents – the insight story

All the stains ruin up the overall look of the face. A face without smile is like a pizza without toppings! You cannot remain without smile even for an hour and if you can, you are an odd man out! This is where a real tooth whitener comes in. generally, the whitener uses bleaching chemical to get down to the tooth enamel and setting off some chemical reactions, particularly an oxidationreaction. Now this breaks apart the staining compounds and turns the tooth white.

Most of the tooth whitening agents uses one of two chemical agents: C arbamideperoxide or H ydrogenperoxide (remember? the same thing that bleaches the hair!!!). When used in the mouth, Carbamide peroxide will break-down into Hydrogen peroxide and urea, with Hydrogen peroxide, being the potential whitening agent.

Though, there are plenty of different ways to set-off the basic process of tooth whitening, let us go for some main options.

There are two main techniques for bleaching; one is executed by dentist and another can be performed by the subject him or herself. A dentist applies some high concentrated oxidizing agent for very little time that offers rapid results. In order to reduce the risks of any chemical burn to the soft tissue, most of the in-office bleaching includes light-cured protective layer, which is carefully painted onto the gums and papilla (the tip of the gum between two teeth).

The bleaching agents are again, either Carbamide peroxide or Hydrogen peroxide itself. An ideal bleaching gel typically has up to 35% Carbamide peroxide that is more or less equivalent to a 12% Hydrogen peroxide concentration.

The home whitening includes purchasing some thinner mouth-guard or strip, which holds relatively low concentrated oxidized agent next to the teeth for as long as many hours a day for a period of one week to fortnight. This is called as take-home or OTC (over-the-counter) bleaching. However, results might vary, depends upon the applications selected, with some people achieving white teeth in just some days, and others seeing less results or even no results at all.

The better one

Tooth whitening can be better performed by professional dentists since the strip or mouth-guard does not completely meet the ideal shape of the teeth and sometimes might leave the tips of the teeth (near the gum-line) uncolored. The bleaching agent is typical less than 10 per cent of Hydrogen peroxide tantamount, so irritation to the soft tissues around the tooth is belittled.

Dentists as well as some dental labs can fabricate custom fitted whitening tray that favorably improve the results on can achieve with any home teeth-whitening techniques. Recently, attempts have been made for accelerating the bleaching process with the help of using light/rays. Studies have revealed varying results as to the efficaciousness of light-activated whitening/bleaching.