I also wanted to talk with you about my experiences with some of the over-the-counter or home teeth whitening kits.

After deciding that getting my teeth whitened professionally was not an option I began investigating some of the other sorts of remedies that were available.

I had used teeth whitening toothpaste years ago (so I guess strictly speaking, this was the first thing that I tried) but had rejected it as something that doesn’t work. I suspect that they use the term “whitening” just as a marketing ploy. It made no visible difference to my teeth and nor have I heard of it working for anybody else.

When it came to the over-the-counter teeth whitening products I heard mixed reports about their effectiveness but I really wanted to find out for myself. I looked at teeth whitening strips by Crest but I didn’t actually try them myself. My research just threw up too many people who had experienced “striping” as a result of using the strips. You see, the strips fit very well over the flat surfaces of the tooth but miss the indentations, gaps and ridges of the normal tooth. This can lead to bleaching only occurring where the strip actually contacts the tooth – meaning your teeth take on a striped appearance.

I’d read a lot about tooth bleaching systems using tooth whitening trays. I thought that this would be definitely worth a try as it seemed to be an at-home version of one of the more popular methods being promoted by the dentists. The trasy are filled with a tooth bleaching gel which varies from system to system. The trays are then fitted over the teeth and left for different lengths of time largely dependent on the strength of the tooth bleaching gel. Rembrandt has a number of teeth whitening products and was a name that was always bobbing up during my research so I decided to give their whitening gel a try. This involved boiling a tooth tray and then molding it to fit your mouth. After that you place some of the bleaching gel thoroughout the tray and just place it in your mouth. The instructions said that I was to leave the tray in place for 2 hours, but the problem was that it was just so uncomfortable – I really wanted to tear it out after 30 minutes. Through will power I managed to last the full 2 hours. It did make a slight difference to the appearance of my teeth but was nowhere near the result that I was hoping for.

Well, at least I was working out what I didn’t want! At this stage I decided to get on the Internet and after searching on “best teeth whitening system” I started to discover some products that were only available via the Internet. There seemed to be a bit of buzz surrounding a product called Alta White. I was a little sceptical at first but as they were offering a free trial of the product, I saw that I didn’t have anything to lose. So I went ahead and ordered … and I’ve got to say that this point that I’m quite impressed. I don’t want to say too much more at this stage because I plan to do an in-depth review of this product in a subsequent post.

So check back soon!

Stacey