Having a bright white smile could be a valuable

In-surgery teeth whitening is an excellent option, but home teeth-whitening kits can offer you professional quality results at a fraction of in-surgery treatment. While two to three sessions at your dentist's office would cost your approximately $500, home teeth whitening kits are far less expensive and results can be equally good.

Professional Teeth Whitening

Dentists use a process of external whitening, a method which is similar to the one you can practise at home with a high quality kit.

The length and number of your visits to the dentist depend on how badly stained or discoloured your teeth are. During your first visit, your dentist will probably scale and polish your teeth to prepare them to accept the whitening treatment, and take the impressions of your teeth to mould your custom-fit mouth trays.

The next step is the filling of the mouth trays with the whitening gel and its application on your upper and lower teeth. The whitening gel contains either hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide as its active bleaching substance, and it is usually left on the teeth from 30 to 60 minutes.

After two or three visits to your dentist's surgery, you will be able to see a visible difference to the colour of your teeth, but in most cases your dentist will advise you to continue the treatment at home for a few more days providing you with a whitening kit.

Even though in-surgery whitening makes you feel reassured that everything is under control and your dentist's supervision makes you feel more comfortable with the whole procedure, you will soon realise that the use of a home teeth-whitening kit is also easy and simple.

Laser Light Teeth Whitening

Another way for better and faster results is the use of a laser light to increase the effectiveness of the whitening gel. When the gel is applied then the laser light can speed up treatment time and give you up to six times whiter teeth.

Results are visible immediately after a one-hour treatment with the laser light and mildly discoloured teeth may not need another in-surgery treatment. However, the dentist will advise you to repeat the treatment at home with a whitening kit once or twice a month to maintain the good results.

What you cannot do at home with a whitening kit is professional procedure for teeth which are root filled, because in this case the bleaching must be internal. The dentist usually drills a small hole to the tooth and fills it with the whitening gel. After that, the dentist will use a temporary filling which has to remain on the tooth until the desired shade is achieved.

Internal bleaching is not possible to be performed at home, and if you have several root-filled teeth you should have in-surgery whitening. When your root-fills are satisfactorily white, you can go on with external bleaching either at home or at the dentist's surgery.