In-office teeth whitening or at home teeth whitening?

Whitening your teeth at home is a bit more convenient than visiting a dentist's office. You can whiten your teeth when you can fit it into your day. However, whitening your teeth at home may take several weeks to get the results you want while whitening your teeth at a cosmetic dentist's office will take a little over an hour to get a radiant, white smile.

To whiten your teeth, you can:

·         Whiten your teeth at a cosmetic dentistry office
·         Use an at-home teeth whitening kit provided by a cosmetic dentist
·         Purchase an over the counter teeth whitening kit

Not all teeth whitening treatments provide the same results. If you want the best results possible, you will want to visit our Arlington cosmetic dentist for her in-office teeth whitening treatment.

In-Office Teeth Whitening Treatment

Our cosmetic dentist provides her patients with the Opalescence Boost Teeth Whitening treatment. This is an in-office treatment that uses a special teeth whitening gel that is chemically activated so there is no need for a light. The treatment takes a little over an hour including setting up and applying the whitening gel to your teeth.

Having your teeth whitened will provide you with better results than whitening your teeth at home or using over the counter whitening treatments. The whitening gel used in the Opalescence Boost treatment is more powerful than any gel you can find in over the counter teeth bleaching kits. The Opalescence at-home kit will also whiten your teeth more than an over the counter treatment.

At-Home Teeth Whitening Treatment

Our cosmetic dentist offers the Opalescence at-home teeth whitening treatment to her patients that would like to whiten their teeth at home or who would like to maintain the teeth whitening results at home that they got from the Opalescence Boost teeth whitening treatment at Dental Associates of Arlington. The at-home kit uses the same gel that the in-office treatment uses, but does not use the light to activate the gel.

The at-home teeth whitening kit uses trays to hold the gel in place on the teeth. These teeth whitening trays are custom fitted to each patient's mouth for optimum comfort. The trays are necessary for holding the gel on the teeth and prevent the gel from moving off the teeth.

The only disadvantage to the at-home teeth whitening kit is that the at home kit takes multiple applications to get the desired result.

Over-the-Counter Teeth Whitening Treatment

Many people use over-the-counter teeth whitening treatments to try to get the results with the Opalescence Teeth Whitening treatment and with the at-home teeth whitening kit our cosmetic dentist offers. Unfortunately, over-the-counter treatments cannot give the same amazing results because they do not have the same level of ingredients as the other treatments.

If you use over-the-counter treatments, your teeth may only be whitened by a couple of shades or you may not notice any results at all. The trays that come with the over-the-counter bleaching kits are one size fits all trays. These trays can be very uncomfortable in most peoples' mouths and they may cut the gums or the insides of the mouth. Also, the gel that is used in these kits may cause tooth sensitivity.

For the best teeth whitening results, please contact our cosmetic dentist today to schedule a tooth whitening consultation.