Buzz
Everyone desires a brighter smile, but no one wants to endure additional dental appointments with their associated costs and time. Thankfully, platforms like Pinterest and TikTok offer countless alternatives—most of which are far from advisable.
Avoid using orange peels on your teeth
A trending teeth-whitening hack suggests rubbing orange peels on your teeth, with some variations recommending lemon or banana peels as substitutes.
Orange peels contain acid, and some claim their purpose is to clean teeth by exposing them to citric acid. However, the issue is that acid harms your enamel. While fruit is a healthy dietary option, drenching your teeth in fruit acids is ill-advised, as stated by an American Dental Association spokesperson in USA Today. The acid can erode tooth enamel, causing irreversible damage.
Coconut oil won’t whiten your teeth
Swishing melted coconut oil in your mouth, a practice known as 'oil pulling,' is a traditional oral care method many endorse. It may function similarly to mouthwash, but it lacks any extraordinary effects and isn’t proven to whiten teeth.
Don’t anticipate dramatic outcomes from peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is renowned for its bleaching capabilities, with highly concentrated forms often used for hair bleaching. It’s also a key ingredient in professional teeth-whitening products.
A 3% hydrogen peroxide solution is available at drugstores, but brushing or rinsing with it to whiten teeth isn’t proven safe or effective. (While toothpastes containing hydrogen peroxide can gradually whiten teeth, the process is slow and results in minimal changes, often too subtle to notice.)
Avoid combining strawberries and baking soda
Numerous DIY toothpaste recipes exist. Baking soda, found in some whitening toothpastes, can act as a mild abrasive to remove stains when used in moderation. However, never mix baking soda with strawberries, lemon juice, kiwis, or other acidic fruits. These mixtures pose the same risks as the orange-peel hack: acid harms your teeth.
Steer clear of overly abrasive toothpaste
If a small amount of abrasiveness from baking soda can whiten teeth, it might seem logical that more abrasiveness would yield even whiter teeth. But is this really the case?
The flaw in this reasoning is obvious. Removing the surface layer of your teeth isn’t a case where more is better. I came across TikTok recipes that mix baking soda with lemon juice and salt or suggest scrubbing teeth with powdered charcoal, both of which dentists deem overly abrasive. The American Dental Association warns that abrasive products can make teeth appear more yellow by eroding enamel and may also harm the soft tissues in your mouth.
Among all the TikTok recipes, my favorite has to be this one, where a woman blends several DIY teeth-whitening ingredients. She combines cucumber, lemon juice, garlic, mint, and yogurt...then gets her teeth professionally whitened, returns home, and eats her creation. “Thanks for watching my tzatziki recipe!”
