World Smile Day: How to whiten your teeth naturally?

 

World Smile Day: How to whiten your teeth naturally?

Between coconut oil, charcoal powder, and baking soda, on the occasion of World Smile Day, InTheLatest gives you all the homemade recipes for whiter teeth.

On the occasion of World Smile Day, here are the instructions for natural teeth whitening... To show your most beautiful smile as soon as you can remove your mask.

"The eyes may be the reflection of the soul, but it's the mouth that you usually look at first on a face," says Dr. Irwin Smigel, the American dentist who, among other things, brightened Elizabeth Taylor's smile. Although laser whitening and the use of cosmetics have been on the rise since the 1970s, the desire to whiten teeth is nothing new. 4,000 years ago, in Cleopatra's time, wealthy Egyptians were proud to display their opulence and beauty with their whitened teeth, obtained from a paste made from pumice stone powder and wine vinegar. Today, haunting advertising campaigns promoting a bright smile have turned our rooms into makeshift dentist's offices with activated carbon powders, brush-on products, dentists' specially designed toothpastes, and coconut oil mouthwashes. Deciphering.

How to obtain white teeth naturally?

"Gently clean teeth with a mixture of honey and smoked salt to which a few drops of vinegar are added" is what the influential French surgeon Guy de Chauliac recommended in the 14th century. Today, while a new generation of technological products with lamps and heating surfaces is making headlines, there are still cheap and natural recipes for white teeth. At the moment, a few techniques that can be done at home are very popular, including activated carbon powder to whiten teeth. But is it really effective? The theory is that the carbon removes stains from your teeth through a process called adsorption. The finely ground black powder mixes bones, olive pits, charcoal, sawdust and processed coconut shells. The powder is activated when it is treated with intense heat that produces a change in its structure, making it more porous than the usual charcoal. No one can say that your teeth will magically become white, but this powder has proven its effectiveness in absorbing plaque and other substances that deteriorate the color of your teeth, significantly improving the brightness of your smile.

How can you whiten your teeth at home (with a little help from your dentist)?

Go back to the 17th century, when barbers filed their teeth and used an acid that eventually attacked the enamel. Today, dentists use concentrated hydrogen peroxide for instant whitening, but the treatment can be expensive. "The procedure is effective, but results vary from patient to patient and it is difficult to determine what the outcome will be," says Penelope Hall, a British dentist based in Singapore. For many people, it is quite painful, although the pain usually lasts only a few days. Patients often end up using teeth whitening trays at home to maintain the result, which is even more expensive. According to Penelope Hall, the best way to achieve white teeth is to use a combination of custom-made trays from your dentist and in-store whitening kits such as Opalescence. "The advantage of dentists' prescribed trays, worn by patients at home, is that they can improve the process by regularly purchasing new syringes of whitening gel. These custom-made devices use lower levels of peroxide than those found in dentists' offices, which is why they should be used more regularly".

Coconut oil

Other much talked about home remedies include coconut oil mouthwash. This Ayurvedic practice consists of energetically circulating one teaspoon of coconut in the mouth for 20 minutes a day. The idea is that the oil removes plaque and thus whitens the teeth. While coconut oil improves oral hygiene - by getting rid of many unwanted bacteria - there is little evidence that it actually whitens teeth. "Many people say that coconut oil can whiten teeth, but there is no evidence to support this idea," says Eminé Ali Rushton, an expert in Ayurvedic medicine and author of a book on wellness and slimming based on these techniques. I use coconut oil to cleanse my mouth, gums and teeth, and to get rid of toxins, I also feel that coconut and charcoal toothpastes make my teeth shine again. Since they are slightly corrosive and clean deep down, they leave the teeth whiter afterwards. But coconut oil alone is not effective".

Baking soda

"Baking soda is great for removing stains, but it can be a little corrosive," says Penelope Hall*. It doesn't whiten the enamel per se, it cleans the tooth thoroughly by removing plaque and stains.* "That's the rub: most treatments that claim to whiten teeth actually just remove stains. While some surface stains are caused by caffeine, wine, soda, tobacco, certain medications, diseases, or genetic factors, it is often possible to prevent stains before they occur, rather than having to correct them afterwards.

How to prevent stains from appearing on your teeth?

Unfortunately, tooth discoloration is often linked to quite pleasant practices, such as drinking coffee or wine, so getting rid of these guilty habits - along with cigarettes and red fruit smoothies - is the key to keeping teeth white. The production of saliva is essential to fight yellow plaque. Therefore, the most important time of day to brush your teeth (for 2 minutes) is just before bedtime. During the day, we swallow our saliva about 2000 times, but during our sleep, it is frequent that we swallow it only 20 times, which explains the dryness of our mouth when we wake up. Nutritionist Natasha Corrett also advises eating foods that crunch in your mouth, such as apples, nuts, seeds, cauliflower or raw broccoli - because the chewing action stimulates the production of saliva. Ultimately, however, all whitening treatments have only a temporary effect, including the strips that are applied just above the enamel. Tea, coffee, tobacco, wine, and soda will always come back to stain your whitened teeth. To prevent the discoloration from getting worse, simply skip the good stuff (!) and continue to use whitening toothpaste. Alternatively, more realistically, you can simply continue to mix causes and remedies as you see fit.