Whiter Teeth?

Today I'm taking you on a new adventure, well, that is if you haven't done at home teeth whitening.  Mark's family has forever been a believer of Crest White Strips and I have been impressed with how white Mark's teeth have gotten recently.  Make that jealous of how white they have gotten.  Yes, let me introduce you to movie star teeth and Meredith with the coffee drinker yellow teeth.  Bummer.  So, while at Target yesterday I decided I would do it, buy the Rembrandt 2-Hour whitening system.  Why the 2 Hour package you ask?  Well, I'm impatient.  Duh.  Plus, I have temporarily tried the 30 minute whitening strips and I couldn't hack it.  My mouth got foamy and gross tasting and overall disgusted by the process.  This 2 hour program sounded like a "get it over quick" kind of thing, so I jumped on it.  Here ya go with my before and after and a little journal to walk you through it. *Yes, Mom, I know if you are reading this you are shaking your head because you don't like the idea of tooth whiting. I'm being hardheaded and vain right now.

8:00 am Pull out the product and find two trays inside with 8 tubes of gel and BONUS, Some Neutrogena lip gloss in my perfect shade!  Guaranteed to make your teeth "look" white even if they don't really change color.  I read directions and filled a coffee cup full of hot water to mold the trays.  Very interesting process I may add.  I think my favorite part out of the whole thing.  The trays have a generic shape until you drop them in the water and then they kind of distort and you pop them into your mouth for you to shape to your own teeth.  After they cool in your mouth you pull them out and start the process after filling them with the gel.

8:15 am I finally get the kids situated and I squeeze the gel into the molds, making sure that I don't over fill them because the direction mentioned something about white spots on your gums if you put too much gel in.  Yikes!  So I made one little gel pack fill both trays and popped them in.  Immediately I taste the yuck of the gel and thus begin to salivate.  GROSS!  Come over to the computer after setting the timer and begin to foam at the mouth.  I mean, will I die if I swallow any of this stuff?  It has to be toxic if it turns your teeth a completely different color, right?

8:20 am  I've decided that I may not make it through this.  I may drown in my own saliva.  I'm starting to sweat.  How much more time.......

8:22 am  I've really decided I may not make it, how does one produce this much drool in a matter of minutes?????!!!!!  Really.  This is not normal.

8:25 am I'm running around the house in a panic and finally decided to try and spit without losing my trays and what do you know, it works!  RELIEF!!!!  I didn't lose the trays and I am no longer salivating like a rabid animal.

8:35 am and I'm sitting calmly and rationally and no longer drooling.  Very pleased.  Now to only do 20 minutes with the trays in and 10 minutes to rest between 3 more times and I'm done.  Ooooh!  I hear the timer!

I go rinse my mouth out and the trays so they are ready for the next applications.  Wow.  This 10 minute break is going a lot faster than those 20 minutes did.......

8:48 am I'm refilled and ready to go.......I'm tasting the gel again and trying not to start drooling.....it's not working.  Ugh.  I got to go spit!  I think my tongue is getting numb.

9:05 am That actually went pretty quick.  I still salivated quite a bit in the beginning, but managed to keep the gagging down to a minimum.  I think the fact that these trays don't dissolve like the strips or adhere to your teeth I'm more comfortable with this process.

Picture time!

So, I don't know if I really see a difference yet.  I had to take my picture in a different room than when I took the first ones because I had to put Macy down for a nap so even though they may look brighter, I'm also in different lighting.

9:20 am Trays go back in!  Session 3 here we go!

9:31 am  This is a lot less dramatic than the other two sessions were.  I'm becoming a pro tooth whitener.  Drool is down to a minimum and have only spit once unlike the other 2,304,209,999 times like the first session.  This may be a good time to tell you that I also bought the mouthwash so I can keep up my pearly whites and I also think I'm going to join that strange group of people who drink their coffee with a straw.  That is if this works.

9:40 am Time to take out the trays and rest for a bit!!  Time to mentally prepare for the last round.

One thing I've noticed is that the white spots I already have on my teeth from who knows what....I was told it is called flurosis from one dentist, but I think it is from the enamel of my teeth being ripped off when I had my braces removed in junior high.  They are not changing at all.  I was hoping everything around them would bleach to their color and become uniform in color, but nope.  I was told this when I once asked about professional whitening that the white spots would just get whiter.  I hoped they were wrong.  

9:50 am LAST ROUND!!!!

I have not had any tooth sensitivity, but the backside of my gums are burning just a tinge.  Nothing bad and since this is the last round, I can deal with it.  Are you guys excited about this??????  I hope this wasn't a wasted 2 hours of my life.  How could it be though, I'm blogging about this so it should be like a how-to or some kind of educational public service, right?  I'm doing this for the greater good of mankind!

10:00 am 10 minutes to go!!!!  I really need to get to my other work......

10:02 am 8 minutes to go.......okay, I promise I won't do a complete countdown.....

TADA!!!!

Okay so you need a BEFORE and AFTER shot to do a side by side comparison so.....

With the awesome lip gloss from Neutrogena!  Soooooooo.......

FEEDBACK......what do you think?  Yes, lighting is off, but I'm pleased.  I can't say that I'm noticing a huge difference in person, but my teeth feel really clean right now.  Maybe because they don't still have my coffee residue from this morning.  I'm going to keep up the mouthwash and hopefully will have even more whitening as time goes on.  Give it a try and let me know how things went for you!


*side note: it is very difficult to take a picture with your own huge camera in manual setting and needing to focus.  Note to self: next time if I have the urge to do something to myself and want to document it for the world to see, have someone else hang around to take the stinkin' pictures.