The old standard of getting your teeth “as white as your eyes” is clearly unpractical. The new gold standard result in teeth whitening is a combination of the following goals. Ideally at the end of whitening we aim to have your

1)      Incisors as white as your canines

2)     Your upper and lower teeth be uniformly white

3)     Shade equivalent to or brighter than Vita B1 (see section on Shade Evaluation)

It must be noted that whether or not the above results can be achieved and how long it takes depends on 3 factors:

Structure of the Teeth (Genetics):

The thicker the enamel, the easier and faster it will be to whiten the teeth.

As previously mentioned, a yellow base colour will whiten fastest and most predictably. This group is closely followed by the reddish yellow group. And of course, trailing behind would be the brown-grey and gray base colours.

Concentration of Whitening Gel

The higher the concentration of the gel, the more power it has to whiten teeth and the faster you will get results.

Time

The longer your duration of whitening, the whiter your teeth will get.

Point to note:

After being informed of the last two factors, almost everyone would say “Ah, it’s simple then, I want a high concentration of gel and I’ll keep it on as long as it takes!” Because that would guarantee you would get the fastest and best results, right? WRONG!

You see there is an inherent problem with using the higher concentrations of whitening gel. You will undoubtedly experience more sensitivity. Remember like all other things in life, it’s a yin-yang balance.

Ideally, we would use the lower concentrations of gel overnight over the course of a few weeks. Inversely, if we wanted to use the higher concentrations, you would be advised to leave the kit on for only a few hours instead of overnight.

You would be thinking “Ok… but all this doesn’t apply to in-office whitening right?” And this is where we chime in with the classic line from Karate Kid, “Same diff-lence (difference) Daniel San”. In-office teeth whitening uses the highest possible concentrations of whitening gel and so we leave it on for only 1 hour. Get it? Got it? Good!