Pearly Whites

I'm tucked up in bed feeling sorry for myself. This afternoon at work I just knew I had a cold coming. Thought I've had one coming for the last few weeks and was surprised it never came out but it seems the cold has won the battle. Feel absolutely rotten tonight so decided a night in bed with the laptop was in order. Dosed myself up on max strength cold relief, got a dairy milk, a magnum (even though I can never eat all of them) and a strawberry milkshake with lots of vanilla ice cream as can feel a sore throat coming :( 

Hopefully I can get it out of my system by the end of the weekend as its my birthday next tuesday! I'll be 23...can't believe it! Seriously only feels like a few months ago it was my 21st! It really is true time goes faster the older you get...! 

Being a perfectionist has its downfalls sometimes! I don't drink tea, coffee or red wine, drink coke occasionally and I don't smoke. My teeth have always been average white I'd say but I've always wanted pure white teeth. I embarked on a mission to find a home kit to whiten my teeth as the strips aren’t available in the UK. I did some research, read reviews and checked what kits I could get in my town. I was very limited and decided on a kit from Boots. I happened to be in Superdrug (since they introduced their beauty card I’ve become somewhat of a regular!) and while queuing to pay for my items I spotted Superdrug’s own kit. Usually I don’t tend to buy own brands but it caught my eye as it was £8.99 for a 14 day treatment. The kit I intended to buy in Boots was £8.16 but I had no idea how long the treatment was for.

It was the only one on the shelf but I left it. The next day I went to Boots and discovered the kit they had was for 7 days. After many minutes spent crouched on the floor (their whitening products are on the bottom shelf!) I decided to try the Superdrug and if it didn’t work I’d get the Boots one. I have two Superdrugs in my town, one little and one large. There were some Sleek products I was after and I wasn’t sure if the bigger Superdrug had them as the little one didn’t, also the kit was in the little one. But I assumed being a larger store they would stock everything the little one did and more.

How wrong I was!

Also note the Superdrugs are opposite ends of my high street! So off I went to the bigger one, not only didn’t they have the kit but they don’t stock Sleek! Double annoyance!

So back I went along the entire high street hoping it wouldn’t be in vain. It must have been my lucky day because it was still there!

I couldn’t wait to try it. I’d never used a whitening kit before so was entering into the unknown. I’ve used whitening toothpastes for years but never got the whiter than snow teeth I want. And let’s face it, professional whitening is pretty expensive!

The first few days were fine. You use the kit morning and night, basically when you’d brush your teeth. It can be a tricky time whilst you have the mouth tray in as you can't speak!

The kit is very easy to use but there are more steps than I expected. You need to brush your teeth as normal. The first step is to fill the mouth tray with the whitening gel. Next you rub a liquid accelerator onto your teeth, which will react with the gel in the tray. Pop in the tray and you can go about your business. The box instructs not to leave the tray in for longer than 10 minutes but sometimes I did because I got distracted. I could always tell if it had been longer than 10 minutes as I could feel the gel irritating my gums, which the box also advises against the gel going on your gums. Pretty impossible I think. There’s no way to stop the gel pushing up onto your gums.

I’d advise removing the tray over your sink. It can be a little messy. You gently use your toothbrush with water to remove the gel and then clean your teeth with the whitening toothpaste.

After about five days my teeth really started to ache. I actually stopped using the kit for two days because I got paranoid my teeth were going to drop out!

My teeth are very important to me. I’m very particular about caring for them and as a smiley person they’re pretty essential to my smile ;)

The aching died down and I re-started the treatment. By this time my teeth were definitely whiter. I was so happy with the results and stopped the treatment a couple of days before the 14^th day. I have enough of the products left to do another session I expect but I bought a new colgate whitening toothpaste which I want to try out. I didn’t want to use a whitening toothpaste while I was putting my teeth through the whitening process. It seemed too much so I started with aquafresh but when my teeth started to ache I switched to a sensitive toothpaste.

Although I was so happy with the results of the kit the teeth ache was pretty horrendous (note I say teeth not tooth!). It made it painful to eat and three weeks after I finished the treatment my teeth are still more sensitive than before the kit. I have one tooth in particular which hurts whenever I eat.

I still want to try the Boots kit, just to compare the results and see how my teeth go.

For now I’ll stick to my whitening toothpastes J

Em x