Teeth whitening strips (Crest Whitestrips ®) - How to perform treatments. (Part 2)
This second half of our "how to use teeth whitening strips" direction set (for a product like Crest Whitestrips ® Classic) provides details about how to perform individual strip treatments, what to do when terminating a treatment session and initiating same-day second treatments.
III) Performing teeth whitening strips treatments.
A) How long should you leave your whitening strips in place?
Once you have your whitening strips positioned on your teeth, your bleaching treatment has begun. So take a look at your clock or watch and start timing.
You'll have to refer to the directions that have come with the specific product that you are using to determine how long the strips should be left in place. The stated time is a maximum exposure. You can always wear your strips less (possibly as a way of managing noticed side effects). The trade-off of course is that you'll get less whitening effect from the same number of strips.
The recommended treatment time for Crest Whitestrips ® Classic (the product we've modeled these directions after) is 30 minutes. But not all teeth whitening strips products are the same (primarily due to the concentration of peroxide that their whitener contains). In all cases you must refer to the directions that have come with the specific product you are using. (Crest Whitestrips ® Classic also recommends two treatments per day. - See our text below.)
B) What activities can you do while wearing your teeth whitening strips?
You can do pretty much any activity you want while your strips are in place, so long as it doesn't dislodge them. That means eating and drinking are out. And trying to do a lot of speaking, especially in public, might be problematic. You'll just have to experiment.
No matter what you do decide to do during your treatment session it's a good idea to check your strips every once in a while to make sure that they are still in place. And, as we discussed in Part 1 of this direction set, if you do find that you need to touch your whitening strips, make sure that you rinse your fingers off afterwards.
C) Excessive salivation may be a problem for some people.
Possibly you've noticed, pretty much anytime you place something in your mouth your body will respond by increasing the flow of saliva. That's just nature. It's how things work.
Teeth whitening strips are no exception to this rule and, for some, placing them may trigger this elevated flow. The difficulty associated with this response is that it can make treatments a bit "yucky." It can also make it difficult to keep your strips in place (especially the lower one).
There aren't a lot of solutions for this problem. You can let the saliva pool in your mouth (preferably away from the strips so not to hamper the whitener's effectiveness) and periodically spit this excess out (checking the placement of your strips afterward).
The good news is that this response has the potential to diminish over time. Short of that, we've noticed that if you allow yourself to concentrate on some other task (other than wearing your whitening strips) the salivation thing seems to become more tolerable. So, maybe treatment time would also be a good time to balance your checkbook, wash the dog or mow the yard.
IV) What to do when terminating a bleaching session.
A) Removing your teeth whitening strips.
At the end of its allotted time period, a treatment session is terminated by removing the whitening strips. And that's easy to do, just peal them off.
You'll want to discard the strips with some care. It's likely that at least some of the hydrogen peroxide whitener (bleaching agent) on the strips is not totally depleted. So dispose of your strips where they are unlikely to come in contact with anything that they might irritate, mar, stain or blemish. And always wash your hands off after handling teeth whitening strips.
Once you have removed your strips you should rinse, wipe or brush away any gel residue that remains on your teeth or gums. In some cases a person may notice that their teeth have post-treatment sensitivity. If so, wiping or else rinsing with tepid water might be the gentlest method. Wash off your finger or toothbrush off afterwards.
V) Some whitening strip products recommend twice-daily treatments.
The directions for some teeth whitening strip products (such as Crest Whitestrips ® Classic) recommend twice-daily treatments. Doing so speeds up the time frame for the whitening process by compressing your exposure to the same amount of whitener in a fewer number of days.
Even though your product's directions may give you that option you can always choose to bleach your teeth just once a day if you prefer. But under no circumstances should you opt to perform more bleaching treatments per day than are recommended. The link above (our next page) discusses this topic in greater detail.
[Crest Whitestrips is a registered trademark of the Proctor & Gamble Company.]
