First of all, apologies for the terrifying grimaces above- try as I might there was just flattering way around it! For the past two weeks or so I've been trialling this whitening kit from Crystal Smile, I've never tried any teeth whitening products before but as this contains no peroxide and is suitable for sensitive teeth (which I tend to get at this time of year) I decided to give it a go. The at-home range states that it provides the same formula as dentists but at a far lower cost, and all products in the range are FDA approved and comply with EU & UK laws. You hear horror stories of how whitening can damage tooth enamel and things and so to know everything in the kit is safe definitely put my mind at ease.
The kit comes with two plastic mouth guards which hold the whitening gel onto your teeth, the first step is to mould these to an exact fit of your own teeth. You do this simply by dipping them in boiling water for a few seconds, put them over your teeth and suck out the air. I was pretty dubious as to how well this would work, but it's an amazing idea and actually works perfectly and gives you the exact imprint of your teeth. Once you have the moulds ready you begin by brushing your teeth as normal, and then applying the desensitiser- the stuff in the blue tube- to each tooth using the doe foot applicator. Then you apply the gel from the syringe into the mouth guards and put them in. Finally you apply the blue light to activate the whitening gel (just for the first five to ten minutes)- you actually hold the light between your lips to keep it in place which looks hilarious but does the trick! After the light has been on for a few minutes you then leave the guards in for a minimum of 45 minutes or overnight. As a very light and fidgety sleeper this isnt something I'd use overnight personally but instead would have them in while watching tv or doing the rest of my beauty regime.
I really wasn't sure what results to expect to be honest, and by about day three I wasn't seeing any change and did question whether or not it was going to work. However a couple of days later after brushing my teeth I noticed in the mirror that my smile looked brighter than usual and could really see that it was making a difference. The picture above shows the results after less than two weeks and I'm happy with the results I got, while it doesn't seem like a dramatic difference I can definitely notice when I'm looking in the mirror. I think if you were patient and kept the trays in overnight or for longer than forty five minutes a time like I did you might get better results. I did find putting in the guards a bit of a chore some evenings (you know those nights where you just want to brush your teeth and collapse into bed?) although I would do it again if I had an event or something coming up and wanted to look my best, and overall think it's worth the effort. It's easy to buy the whitening gel refills from the site, so once you have the initial kit with the mouth guards you could easily topup whenever you needed.
Have you ever used teeth whitening products? What kind of results did you get?
