Do you ever see people with teeth so white and so perfect they make you want to cry?
Let me guess β they're all celebrities, right?
Nobody is naturally that blessed with teeth that white, shiny, straight, or even. Celebrities have very well-kept secrets when it comes to getting their teeth ready for movie sets and red carpets β cosmetic dentists.
Hollywood doesn't just go for a round of drugstore strips when they want to get those blindingly white teeth. The celebrity version of teeth whitening is a LOT more luxurious β and way more expensive.
But is it really worth it? I decided to find out what it really takes to whiten your teeth like an A-lister.
Celebrities often use a service called Zoom! Whitening, which I received from Dr. Timothy Chase's team at SmilesNY in New York City.
Chase is one of Manhattan's top cosmetic dentists with a speciality in tooth preservation, and Zoom! is a whitening brand that's developed a very specific tooth whitening peroxide formula, which is paired with exposure to blue light.Β
Zoom! sessions cost on average around $500, but that price could be as low as $250 or more than $1,000 depending on where you live and who you see.
Click here to learn more about Zoom! and here to learn more about Chase.
Before any whitening could be done on my teeth, they had to be cleaned thoroughly.
Chase likened this part of the process to a car wash: "You wouldn't wax a car before you washed all the dirt off of it, would you?"
In this case, washing the metaphorical car meant scraping plaque out of the deep crevices of my teeth (gross, I know, sorry) removing surface stains, polishing, and flossing my teeth.
Then I had the strangest photo shoot I've ever partaken in.
My teeth, pre-Zoom!, were at a whiteness level dentists call a BL3 β that means they were already pretty dang white, but I still didn't feel they'd be worthy of a red carpet.
At last, after holding plastic hooks in my mouth for a ten-minute photo session, it was time for the actual whitening process to begin.
What came next was the weirdest part (no, it's not the GIANT piece of plastic holding my lips apart).
The first step is strange but absolutely crucial. One of Chase's dental assistants put white gel all over my gums with a tool that looked like a medieval torture device.
It wasn't painful β in fact, my gums were almost numb. I barely felt a thing aside from the discomfort of having my lips held back with plastic.
When exposed to UV light, the gel hardened into a rubber consistency and prevented the peroxide (AKA fancy teeth bleach) from coming into contact with my gums.
In terms of pain and sensitivity, this is the part that REALLY makes the difference between professional and at-home teeth whitening. A large reason your teeth become so sensitive after using whitening strips at home is because they put your gums in direct contact with peroxide. Peroxide, as told to me by Chase, is the only substance scientifically proven to whiten teeth, by the way (whitening toothpastes and baking soda hacks are all scams).Β
Blocking off the gums prevents a large portion of the sensitivity one is due to feel from whitening. That being said, this doesn't magically make the entire process pain free β teeth are actually quite porous, and they *will* become sensitive when peroxide inevitably sinks past the tooth enamel. But that gel makes things a hell of a lot more comfortable and safe for your gums.
Hi, am I Celebrity Level Hot yet?
No? OK.
Anyway, after the gums were safe and sound underneath that gel, Chase's assistant painted Zoom!'s specially formulated peroxide gel onto the front surface of all my front teeth.
At this point, she warned me I might feel what Chase's team calls "zings," or minor but sudden aches from the peroxide seeping process I described earlier. If I felt any discomfort, she said, I should tell her right away. "Don't bear it, just tell me."
Hahahahahahaha. I wasn't nervous. No. Not at all.
Once the gel was on, she put this MASSIVE and very heavy light all the way inside my mouth, where it would stay for 15 minutes.
Once the light was in and on, I wasn't allowed to move for that whole 15 minutes. I couldn't even look at my phone.
Chase said the science on whether or not the light makes an active difference in the whitening process isn't 100% there yet, but it was there for a reason.
It's thought among professionals that the light heats up the peroxide gel to "activate" it and speed up the whitening process.
It definitely doesn't cause harm, though, so there's no reason not to use it. Plus, it looks like a mouth-operated time travel device. Nice.
Once those first 15 minutes were over, Chase's assistant came back to rinse off the peroxide gel and dried my teeth with a little air β we were far from over, though.
I should note that by this point I hadn't felt any sensitivity in my teeth, but I was feeling very sore in my lips and jaw from having my lips pulled back so far and sitting under the weight of the light for so long.
Because it's common practice for dentists to apply peroxide gel for three 15-minute sessions under the Zoom! light.
To prevent my teeth from becoming *too* white, though, I stopped after two sessions.
According to Chase, it is possible to whiten your teeth too much. Too much peroxide can cause the teeth to go transparent, and that exposes all their inner workings and causes them to look a little gray or blue. I started with relatively white teeth, so I didn't want to risk going that far.
My jaw also desperately needed a break from holding the weight of the light. Imagine how you'd feel after chewing a massive wad of stale bubble gum for 15 minutes. It felt like that. On the bright side, I felt zero immediate sensitivity or "zings" β my teeth just felt kind of hot.
I'm not even going to lie, another 15 minutes would have been rough β feeling the gel and mouthpiece come off was a monstrous relief to my jaw and lips.
Having people all up in your personal business and wearing multiple uncomfortable plastic mouthpieces was one of two minor downsides to this procedure (more on number two in a minute).
But it was worth it because HOLY HELL my teeth are so white now.
To reiterate: These were my teeth before:
"Extremely OK," as I called them.
And these are my teeth now, post-Zoom!:
These are Above Average Superstar Celebrity Teeth.
The only (minor) issue? I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything "that would stain a white t-shirt" for up to two days.
That meant no beer or wine on my Friday night, no salad dressing or pasta sauces, nothing with any real flavor.
And worst of all, NO COFFEE. That was just cruel.
But after decades, my perfectionist ass finally got teeth as sparkling white as her bathroom countertops β in 30 minutes flat.
This is a visible result you'd have to wear months worth of at-home whitening strips and endure a hell of a lot of toothaches for. Worth it.
It might've been a subtle change because I'd already been using whitening strips to offset my iced coffee habit, but keep in kind a majority of Chase's patients come in somewhere around this level:
And according to Chase, most of them leave up to four levels whiter (look at the fourth model tooth from the left).
So, uh, bye bye, white strips.
See ya maybe never again.
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