An investigation into which type of teeth whitener might be best for your use may not lead to an answer that is singular in form. Each individual whitening method offers it own unique strengths. It would seem quite likely that any particular individual could find more than one type of over-the-counter teeth bleaching product suitable for their purposes.
Before you can make a decision about which type of teeth whitener to use you will of course need to know details about each of them. If you haven't done so already you can use the links below to access our pages that describe the various at-home peroxide-based teeth whitening kits that are available.
If you already know a little about each of these whitening systems then continue on and read the remainder of the text on this page. It focuses on some of the specific strengths and weaknesses of each bleaching technique.
As we will continually remind you throughout our pages, the use of an over-the-counter teeth whitener does not necessarily preclude the use of your dentist as a source of information. It is always prudent to ask your dentist for their opinion about over-the-counter teeth whitening products, and teeth whitening in general, before you start a bleaching process. No one could possibly know more about this topic and how it relates to your specific situation than your dentist.
Compliance, compliance, compliance. For the most part peroxide-based teeth whitening is a simply a case of cause and effect. Successful teeth whitening will only occur if the whitener is in contact with the tooth surface for an appropriate amount of time. If some aspect of a particular system will prevent you from fully complying with its instructions choosing that method will make it difficult for you to be successful in your whitening efforts.
Each of the at-home peroxide-based teeth whitening methods we discuss on our pages employs a different method of delivering the whitener to the tooth's surface (tray, strip, paint-on, and toothpaste). One of these application methods might appeal to you more so than the others. If so, that very well might be the best technique for you. If you can comply with a technique's instructions you will be more likely to achieve the whitening results it can offer.
As a part of the information we include on our pages that detail each of the various types of at-home peroxide-based teeth whitening methods we try to address both the strengths and weaknesses of each technique. In a nutshell however, here are some of the pro's and con's we have noticed with these techniques. This list is not complete or definitive nor is it necessarily based on research. It is simply observations we have had.
Among the four types of peroxide-based teeth whitening systems we discuss on our pages (tray, whitening strips, paint-on, and toothpaste) it would be tray whitening using a carbamide peroxide whitener that has the reputation for being the most effective. The dental literature is full of case studies where tray-based methodology has been used to produce successful, and often surprising, end results. Other teeth whitening methods simply cannot claim this.
At-home tray teeth whitening was the first bleaching method to become widely adopted by dentists. For the most part it is this at-home bleaching technique that ignited the explosion of over-the-counter peroxide-based products found on the market today.
Over-the-counter tray teeth whitening kits typically provide the user with a "stock" bleaching tray as opposed to a dentist fabricated "custom" tray. Custom bleaching trays are fabricated on a mold of a person's teeth. The tray is then trimmed in a fashion where its edges end right at the person's gum line. The thought associated with this tray design is that it helps to minimize the contact of the whitening gel with the user's gums, thus making it less likely that the user will experience gum irritation as a side-effect of the bleaching process.
The importance of using a custom tray can be debated. Certainly many people have successfully and uneventfully bleach their teeth using a stock tray. Some over-the-counter teeth whitening products provide a means by which you make a mold of your teeth yourself. The mold is then returned to the company and they create a custom bleaching tray for you.
At least according to some studies, Crest Whitestrips ® can be expected to provide similar effectiveness as that produced by tray technique using 10% carbamide peroxide as the whitener. And similar in nature as with tray-based whitening, it seems very likely that a person complying with product instructions would indeed achieve some degree of tooth lightening when using whitening strips.
For some people an advantage of using a product such as Crest Whitestrips ® is that no (bulky, ill-fitting, cumbersome, non-custom) bleaching tray is needed. On the other hand others might prefer the use of a snug bleaching tray instead of a whitening strip that might be dislodged more easily.
A point of consideration when evaluating paint-on whitening is that the whitener is less protected from the oral environment (than say with a tray whitening technique) and therefore the level of effective exposure of the teeth to the bleaching agent may be less than with other whitening methods. Paint-on technique doesn't seem to share the reputation for producing dramatic whitening results in the same way as tray-based, or even possibly whitening strips, do.
In fact, in dental literature it seems more common place to see this method of teeth whitening studied in comparison to toothpastes or other paint-on products rather than compared to tried and true tray teeth whitening systems. This implies a bias in the way some paint-on whitener studies have been set up.
One might anticipate that those paint-on whitening products that are intended for overnight use (Colgate Simply White Night ®, Crest Night Effects ®) provide a greater exposure of the whitening agent to the tooth surface than their daytime counter parts and therefore are more effective. (Our
Barlow reference seems to have found this to be true.)
In the plus column, the nature of paint-on application does provide way that individual teeth could be treated if needed. Additionally, these products are usually fairly inexpensive.
Colgate Simply White and Colgate Simply White Night are registered trademarks of the Colgate-Palmolive Company.
Crest Night Effects is a registered trademark of the Proctor & Gamble Company.
From a standpoint of producing an internal whitening effect based on the chemistry of peroxide teeth whitening, it seems unlikely that whitening toothpastes provide any benefit. This isn't to say that these products can't provide a service to the user, but instead that the whitening they can achieve based on peroxide chemistry is very limited in comparison to other teeth bleaching methods.
We are unfamiliar with any published study that has evaluated the relative effectiveness of all four peroxide-base at-home teeth whitening systems: tray-based, whitening strips, paint-on whiteners, and whitening toothpastes. While it is only conjecture on our part, we would rank these techniques in the following order (from most effective to least effective).