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Summary: Hydrogen Peroxide may not be strong enough to whiten teeth. Learn more about the process of whitening teeth from a dentist is this free dental series.
Many people today want a whiter, brighter smile. Some of us can achieve it with proper oral hygiene—regular brushing, flossing, and using mouthwash. Some of us need a little extra help to get our yellowing teeth to return to the land of sparkling white, especially us smokers and coffee drinkers. There are a number of products out there that will help turn our teeth a few shades whiter, including bleaching agents and toothpastes that contain whiteners. For some, these do the trick; for others, over the counter solutions are often hit and miss, with temporary results. In this free dental video series, learn the basics of teeth whitening. A dentist explains the risks involved in using Hydrogen Peroxide, facts of teeth whitening like how saliva dilutes bleach, the history of teeth whitening, using whitening strips and safety tips. Get teeth white and start smiling again.
"I'm Dr. Joe Neely. I practice with the Barton Oaks Dental Group. We're going to talk about whether you can whiten your teeth, using hydrogen peroxide, that you buy at the drugstore. The bleaching process, if you think about your teeth, as being like the tile in your shower. You have some ceramic parts, and then you have some grout, that holds those parts in. The bleaching process, is the process of cleaning out the grout. Cleaning out the tars and resins, and other colorations that have embedded themselves in the grout, and then translused through the ceramic parts, to make the teeth look darker. A bleach works by oxidizing the stuff that's in the grout, and theoretically, you have a situation, where the two things that have to happen for a tooth to bleach, is the strength of the agent that's oxidizing, which hydrogen peroxide will do, and the amount of time it can remain on that grout, without being deluded by the saliva. The problem with using hydrogen peroxide over the counter, one it's not strong enough. You can buy some stronger hydrogen peroxide, but then it's so runny, it gets against the gums, and the saliva washes it off the tooth, almost immediately, or it dries, and so you need some type of surfactant, some type of gel material, to hold the bleach in place, so that you can keep the bleach against your teeth, and not against your gums."
eHow Article: Whitening Teeth & Hydrogen Peroxide
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