How To Whiten Teeth At Home: 7 Fast and Safe Tips!

Today, I'm going to discuss one of the most popular cosmetic dentistry procedures that I get asked about all the time, teeth whitening and I'll provide tips on how to whiten teeth at home and give you 7 fast and safe tips.

Over the past 24 years, I've helped some of your favorite celebrities, and even influencers get their smiles pearly white like Cardi B, boxing champion Claressa Shields, and rapper and actor Common, but I say having white teeth is not just reserved for celebrities.  Almost anyone who is a candidate for teeth whitening can brighten their smiles without breaking the bank, especially when you whiten your teeth at home. So my goal today is to help you do it at home fast, and most importantly, safely.

According to the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, teeth whitening is in high demand. In the last year alone, Americans spent more than $1.4 billion on over-the-counter teeth whitening. That's a lot of money.

How To Whiten Teeth At Home

1. Use A Home Teeth Whitening Kit That Contains Hydrogen Peroxide And An Led Light

With the home whitening kits, the hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide gel dissolves the stains from the enamel in deeper layers of the tooth in order to whiten the teeth. The LED lamp works to accelerate the process. It will not work on its own. Just the LED light alone will not whiten your teeth. But when used with peroxide, it acts to speed up the whitening process. You will wear it as directed, usually for about 15 to 30 minutes for 5 to 10 days to get the yellow color out.

2. Try Power Brushing Your Teeth

Now, your daily plan of action should be to incorporate a consistent brushing routine into your daily oral care regimen. I like to call it a smile workout and it's especially important for you to brush after consuming those foods and drinks that can lead to yellow teeth and teeth staining. Brush your teeth at least twice a day for two whole minutes at a time. Brush each quadrant of your teeth for 30 seconds each.  That's 30 seconds brushing the outside of your teeth, 30 seconds brushing the inside surfaces of your teeth (the tongue side), and 30 seconds brushing the chewing surfaces.

I highly, highly recommend that you use an electric toothbrush because they're far more powerful than manually brushing your teeth alone. The top brands will brush your teeth about 35,000 to 40,000 brush strokes per minute. They even have  tw0-minute timers, so you can't go wrong and you know you're doing an effective job of cleaning your teeth. Now, if you're going to use a manual toothbrush, please make sure that you're using soft bristles only, not hard, not medium. Again, make sure you're brushing the outside, the biting surface, the tongue side, each section of your mouth for 30 seconds.

3. Power Floss With A WaterPik

I call these water flossers a car wash or the spa for your smile. The Waterpik water flosser is a combination of pressure and pulsations and when you aim that hose right towards the gum line, you're going to see that it's going to clean away all of that harmful plaque and food debris that's helping to turn your teeth yellow, so we wan to rinse that away.

4. Store-Bought Whitening Toothpaste

Now, if your teeth are already pretty bright, but you wanna minimize the stains, you can brush with a store-bought whitening toothpaste. The whitening tubes of toothpaste are effective for removing the enamel surface stains caused by drinking coffee, tea, or smoking. Unlike the peroxide kits with LED light, whitening toothpaste is not good for changing the color of your teeth.

If your teeth are yellow, this is not what you want to use. Now, if your discolorations run deeper, you will want to use the take-home whitening kits with the LED light and peroxide or you may get professional teeth whitening from a specialist that has access to the higher concentration of the peroxide gels to give you the results that you're looking for.

5. Make  A Kicked-Up Strawberry Whitening Toothpaste

I am so excited to show you how to whiten teeth at home with things that you already have in your kitchen and bathroom cabinets. I am going to share my kicked-up strawberry whitening toothpaste recipe. This is something that celebrities use. Strawberries have a cool little acid called malic acid that has whitening properties, so you'll find that celebs like Catherine Zeta-Jones use this all the time to keep their teeth white.

You might also like: Does Teeth Whitening Work and Is It Worth It?

So one way that you can use strawberries before I get into the recipe, is you can literally just take a strawberry, cut it in half, and put the strawberry directly on your teeth, rub it around for like two minutes, use it as a brush and you can get that malic acid from the strawberries right on your teeth. It's gonna dissolve any of the stains that have accumulated on your teeth as long as you haven't let those stains set for weeks and weeks and weeks. You'll be able to put this on your teeth and it will dissolve those stains and brighten your teeth.

But if you wanna get a little fancy with it, you can make my strawberry kicked up whitening toothpaste.

• First start with ripe strawberries, as ripe as you can get them
• Next, slice one large strawberry into smaller pieces then place in a bowl
• Add one to two tablespoons of baking soda
• Add one to two tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide
• Mix until it forms a paste

It smells good too, once you've made your kicked-up strawberry toothpaste, take your sonic toothbrush or your soft manual toothbrush and apply some of the strawberry whitening toothpaste to the bristles. I love the sonic toothbrush because again, it has a two-minute timer.   You are going to find that this strawberry toothpaste is going to whiten your smile wonderfully!

6. Use Activated Charcoal

So let's get into our tip number six on how to whitening your teeth at home. If you are not familiar with charcoal by now, it's become so popular that you probably have heard about it.  Activated charcoal is this black powder, not what we grill with on our barbecue grills. You may find activated charcoal in local stores and the price ranges from anywhere between $3 to $30.

You want to make sure that you're getting a nice finely cut charcoal. The cheaper the brand, the more coarse it's going to be and the more harmful and abrasive to your teeth it may become. We don't want that. I'm going to use my VIP Smiles teeth whitening charcoal for this demonstration and it's very, very fine.

• Wet the bristles of your toothbrush - the way that you're going to use this activated charcoal is you're going to wet the bristles of your toothbrush, either the soft manual toothbrush.
• Use a charcoal bristled toothbrush  - the powder is black and you'll find that over time, it'll turn your white bristles black if you're using a regular toothbrush.
• Wet the bristles of your toothbrush
• Dip your toothbrush in the powder - and then do the same brushing, two full minutes, each section of your mouth, and you're going to do a complete brushing and then rinse your mouth.

Now, you definitely want to do this over a sink because the powder gets a little messy, especially if you're using your sonic toothbrush, but it's worth it. And you also may find that once you rinse your mouth, there may still be little black particles of charcoal in your mouth, so you may want to finish off with a sonic toothbrush because it's powerful enough to clean your teeth completely. You will do this almost every single day, especially if you drink coffee or tea, or you could do it once a week if you just want to make sure that you're not abusing your teeth and you're not going to scrape the enamel away.  There are lots of rumors that charcoal is so harmful to your tooth enamel. No. If you do it in moderation, it's going to be safe and effective for keeping your teeth stain-free and bright.

7. Coconut Oil Pulling

Tip number seven is going to be an oldie but goodie, it's called coconut oil pulling. Coconut oil pulling is something that's very, very similar to charcoal brushing because coconut oil is a natural detoxifying agent. So again, not only are you going to keep your teeth bright with the coconut oil, but you're going to pull out the bacteria and keep your mouth healthy as well.

There are two ways that you can get coconut oil. I found coconut oil packets at Trader Joe's, one of my favorite grocery stores. Trader Joe's has the organic virgin coconut oil packets and when you open the box, it comes in nice little individual packets. You can either open up the packet, squirt this in your mouth and you're going to swish with the coconut oil for about 10 to 20 minutes. The longer, the better.

Now, if you want to make it a little bit easier, if this looks too oily, or too thick for you, and you don't want to put the packet in your mouth, then you can use the other form, which comes in a liquid form. Now, I found the liquid form at Whole Foods. You will use about a quarter of a cup of coconut oil in your mouth, swish, and swish it really well, and do that, again, for 10 to 20 minutes and spit it out and rinse.

You don't necessarily wanna swallow it just like the other mouthwashes and rinses that you use. Just make sure you rinse it out thoroughly and if you wanna finish off by brushing, you're gonna be in good shape. Again, if you use coconut oil, you're going to pull out the toxins, kill the bacteria, fight the plaque, which builds up to yellow deposits on your teeth, and you're going to have a whiter smile.

I Will Evaluate The Color Of Your Teeth For Free!

So that concludes my 7 tips on how to whiten teeth at home with things that you have in your kitchen cabinet, or in your bathroom cabinet, and products that I highly recommend that can really help. If you have been thinking about enhancing the color of your teeth with teeth whitening and you want to see if you are a candidate for teeth whitening before you start spending money on products that may or may not work, I will evaluate the color of your teeth for free.

I want to help guide you in the right direction. You can also get my free teeth whitening recipe guide, by texting 'recipe' to 810-777-6277 and you can make your own fresh teeth whitening paste and rinses to keep your smile healthy and bright daily.