How Zoom Can Whiten Your Teeth

Wanting your teeth to be as white as they can be doesn’t just affect women. There’s a big market in whitening for men, too. Although most people’s teeth have that brilliant white shine when they first come in, a lifetime of food, drink, tobacco, and just plain aging can render them stained, dull, or spotted.

Fortunately, there’s also a huge market in teeth whitening, and Americans of both sexes and all ages are going for the offerings full throttle. Healthline reports that in 2015, we spent more than $11 billion on teeth whitening products and treatments, including 1.4 billion on at-home products.

At Smylique Dentistry in Rochester, New York, Dr. Indra Quagliata and her team provide dental services of all types to their patients. That includes offering stellar in-office whitening courtesy of Zoom, as well as at-home kits you can use at your own pace. Here’s what you need to know.

Why dull and stained teeth occur

The US National Library of Medicine indicates that any tooth color other than white or yellowish-white is considered abnormal. When your teeth become discolored, that discoloration can come from extrinsic or intrinsic factors.

Extrinsic factors are those that affect the hard enamel covering the teeth. For all its hardness, enamel is easily stained, but those stains can most often be removed or corrected. The greatest cause of extrinsic discoloration comes from lifestyle, which includes drinking dark drinks like coffee, tea, red wine, and soda; eating dark fruits like blueberries, cherries, pomegranates, and beets; and smoking or chewing tobacco.

Acidic foods and drinks help promote staining by wearing away the tooth enamel; pigments stick to the inner tissue much more easily.

Intrinsic stains form within the inner structure of the tooth, called the dentin, which makes them more difficult to remove. Some medications cause tooth yellowing, as can chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Age-related yellowing occurs because the outer enamel thins with time, revealing the yellowish dentin beneath.

According to the Mayo Clinic, you can protect against thinning enamel by encouraging saliva production. Saliva bathes the mouth, washing away plaque and food particles from the teeth surfaces before they’re able to produce a stain.

Zooming in on whitening

All tooth whitening systems use a bleaching agent containing peroxide, either carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide. You can get OTC drugstore kits to use at home, but they contain little of the active ingredient, if any; they can take months before you see even a modest result; and their gel trays are clumsy and don’t fit your mouth exactly.

In contrast, in-office dental whitening systems use customized trays with gels containing from 15-43% peroxide, while your dentist’s at-home kits use trays containing gels composed of 3-20% peroxide. 

At Smylique Dentistry, we use the Zoom in-office teeth whitening system. It’s incredibly powerful and can whiten your teeth by up to eight shades in a single visit. The process takes two visits.

At the first visit, we create a digital mold of your teeth, so the trays will precisely fit your teeth. At the second visit, we place the newly made trays, along with the bleaching solution, over your teeth. We also cover your lips and gums to protect them from irritation.

While you sit in the chair, we position a special light over your teeth that does two things: activates the gel and allows it to penetrate into the tooth enamel. 

Once we’re through with the session, we cover your teeth with a post-treatment gel to reduce any further sensitivity. That’s all there is to it. You’re now ready to show your glowing smile to anyone and everyone.

If you aren’t comfortable doing an in-office procedure, we have take-home kits, also provided by Zoom, which you can use in the comfort of your own home. You’ll be able to see dramatic results from a few days after starting to a couple weeks later.

Is your dull and dingy smile putting a dent in your self-confidence and willingness to smile? Zoom in to Smylique Dentistry to find out more. Give us a call at 585-207-2159, or schedule an appointment online today.