Tooth whitening: do DIY kits work?
Have you been curious to try DIY tooth whitening kits? Are they worth the money? Will you end up needing to pay for in-chair whitening anyway?
In this blog series, we will try out several DIY kits. We will trial products that you can buy in most supermarkets, as well as dentist-only products. So keep checking our blog for regular updates.
DIY tooth whitening is proving to be very popular, as you can whiten your teeth in the comfort of your own home at your convenience.
In this post, I will be reviewing Opalescence Go. Each sealed box contains upper and lower whitening trays prefilled with a 6% hydrogen peroxide whitening gel. The gel is a similar ingredient to what you might find if you have in-chair whitening done at the dentist. The difference with Opalescence Go is that you don’t need to have moulds of your teeth done to make individualised whitening trays.
Having used conventional tooth whitening methods in the past, I was curious to see whether this convenient and inexpensive option would be effective.
DETAILS:
Opalescence Go Prefilled Whitening trays (6% Hydrogen Peroxide). Each box contains 10 upper and 10 lower trays (20 altogether). This would be enough for 10 treatments.
COST:
This product can’t be purchased at normal supermarkets. It can only be purchased from most dental practices. We currently have them in stock for $90 a kit.
EASE OF USE:
I found the pre-filled trays very easy to use. They have easy to follow pictures to show you how to put the trays over your teeth. All you have to do is close your lips over the main tray and peel the outer (green) tray off. Once the trays are in, wait for 60-90mins per treatment.
Read more: We recently reviewed Oral B 3D White Whitestrips LUXE and Warpaint Natural Teeth Whitener.
The plastic trays actually soften with the ambient heat in your mouth and mould very closely to your teeth.
One negative I found was that it if you aren’t careful, the gel can go everywhere when you were putting it in. Which can be bad because the gel can cause some irritation to your gums and insides of your mouth. Wipe any excess gel with a damp tissue to prevent this.
TASTE:
The Opalescence Go gel has a pleasant minty taste.
DQ STAFF RATING:
VERDICT:
After one use, 70% of the stains on my teeth had gone. My teeth are definitely whiter (about 2 shades) after only 4 applications. The colour didn’t go too white that it looked unnatural. I will probably do a few more applications and just stop when I’m happy with the shade. Any spare trays can be kept for later, so I can do a treatment before a special event or if I think the shade of my teeth has faded a bit.
Usually my teeth get pretty sensitive when I whiten them, but I was really pleased that there wasn’t any sensitivity at all!
I really loved the Opalescence Go, I think it really works well if you want to whiten your teeth a couple of shades. I even gave one to my Mum to use and she loved it too! However, if you were looking for a really big change in the colour or have very stained teeth, this product might not be the best for you.
