I have some household bleach and wondered if that would work for whitening my teeth.

Danny

Dear Danny,

While it is very possible it will whiten your teeth, I’m going to steer you a different direction. Bleach is a base. You may be familiar with another base–lye, which is extremely corrosive. Bleach is corrosive to organic tissue in a similar way. In fact, many dentists use it in a root canal treatment to dissolve the dead organic tissue left in the tooth.

I’m afraid if you used the bleach from your home, it will damage the tissue inside your mouth. This will cause you a significant amount of unnecessary problems.

The Safest Way to Whiten Your Teeth

If you truly want to whiten your teeth, there are a few ways to safely go about it.

First, you could use over the counter Crest Whitestrips. These will whiten your teeth, albeit much more slowly than professional whitening, so you will have to use quite a few kits. They also have the limitation of only affecting the front six teeth unless you wear more than one strip on each arch.

Second, you can do at home professional teeth whitening. This method uses bleaching trays like the ones pictured above. These are custom-fitted to your teeth and your dentist provides you with a strong bleaching gel to wear in them.

Finally, if you are in a hurry, you can do in-office Zoom Whitening. This will whiten your teeth in just one appointment.

Any one of those are safer options than using household bleach.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentists Dr. Thimmesch and Foreman.