Thinking about whitening your teeth? Doing so can be a great idea.
Need a little encouragement before you make the decision to whiten your teeth? If so, click our movie's start button to see what the consensus is in the penguin community regarding teeth whitening.
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What tooth-bleaching options does a consumer have?
In general there are two basic types of teeth whitening treatments:
1) Home-based teeth whitening.
Several different types of whitening products and systems come under the category of "at-home" tooth bleaching treatments. We've linked to those discussed on the pages of Animated-Teeth.com below.
The materials used with at-home systems are sometimes dispensed by a person's dentist and used under their general guidance and supervision. Possibly in most cases however, they are obtained by the person from an over-the-counter source (a local store or online) and utilized by the person on their own, at their own discretion.
An at-home whitening approach is typically less expensive than having profession treatments (described below) and in some cases can provide a similar result. The trade-off is that the total treatment time takes longer.
2) Professional (in-office) teeth bleaching.
A person can choose to have their teeth whitened "professionally." This simply means that their bleaching sessions are performed by their dentist (and support staff) in the dentist's office. These types of services are sometimes termed in-office or laser tooth whitening.
Professional whitening is typically more expensive than using an at-home approach. But it provides results much more rapidly (often with just one 60-minute session). It may possibly provide more predictable results.
