How To Have Whiter Teeth Without Expensive Whitening Treatments

We’ve all seen the products and infomercials on television expounding the benefits of having whiter teeth. Sure, everyone wants their smile to be the whitest and brightest it can be, until you walk into the grocery store, pharmacy or drug store and see those hefty prices on the teeth whitening products sitting on the shelf - ouch!

So let’s talk a bit about how you can have whiter and brighter teeth, without buying expensive whitening products or visiting your dentist and spending an hour in the chair and shelling out hundreds of dollars for laser or tray bleaching.

First, let’s talk about prevention and then we’ll move on to how to brighten up an already dull smile. Prevention is really the key to keeping teeth healthy looking and white.

I was surprised to learn that genetics played a role in determining the color of your teeth. From birth, some people will just have darker teeth and some people will have whiter teeth than others. After genetics, things such as the type of water we had as babies, while our teeth were still forming, can play a role in the base color of our teeth. Fluoride in American public water systems used to be found in too high of quantities. While those exposed to the high quantity fluoride in the public water have very healthy teeth, the fluoride was found to darken and even stain the natural color of the teeth - usually permanently. Today, fluoride is used in much smaller concentrations in public water, and more and more people are using bottled water without additives to feed their babies.

As a child, the biggest concern isn’t whiter teeth, but rather healthier ones. Most of the foods young children eat do not stain teeth and as long as a child properly brushes and cleans their teeth after meals, a child should have no problem with keeping whiter teeth, provided genetics gave them whiter teeth to begin.