Which is best, professional teeth whitening treatments performed by your dentist or using an at-home product?

No doubt the number one question people reading our pages have is: Which is best, having professional teeth whitening treatments performed by your dentist or using an at-home whitener? While the information found on our pages will help you arrive at an answer to this questions we'd first like to say that using the word "best" really is not an appropriate way to phrase this question. Here's why ...

Peroxide-based teeth whitening is generally considered by dentists to be a function of two factors:

It's as simple as that. For teeth to whiten they need to be exposed to an appropriate teeth whitener (in an appropriate manner) for an appropriate amount of time.

This information (which possibly comes as a surprise) implies that to get the same degree of teeth lightening a whitening system can either use a low concentration whitener for an extended period of time (the method utilized by at-home teeth whitening products) or else a higher concentration whitener for a comparatively shorter period of time (the method employed by professional teeth whitening treatments performed by dentists).

And while our pages have more to say about each of these approaches, the crux of the matter is that both at-home (especially tray-based) and professional systems can result in the same whitening outcome. Neither method is necessarily "best".

Which is best, using an at-home teeth whitening product or having professional treatments performed by your dentist?

Let's ask our original question again: Which is best, having at-home or professional teeth whitening treatments? As you can see we have still used the word "best" in our sentence even though we already know that both whitening approaches can typically be used to produce similar results. This time however let's look at answering this question in terms of not what method gives the best results but instead which method best fits into your lifestyle.

Of course before you can make a determination you will need to know a little bit about what each method entails ...

What is professional teeth bleaching as performed by a dentist as opposed to at-home teeth whitening whose treatments are performed by you at home?

Professional in-office teeth whitening (sometimes referred to as "power bleaching") is a methodology where the application of the whitener is applied by your dentist in their dental office. In contrast, with at-home teeth whitening the dental patient has the bleaching materials with them at home and performs their bleaching treatments on their own, unsupervised.

At-home teeth bleaching typically involves performing whitening treatments each day over a series of weeks. In-office bleaching treatments are typically much fewer in number, possibly as few as one.

The teeth whitening system that is best for you can depend on factors such as: available time, your temperament, and how much money you have to spend.

Here are some characteristics of these two teeth whitening systems ...

Advantages and disadvantages of at-home teeth whitening:


Advantages and disadvantages of professional teeth whitening:

  • The whitening effect is seen immediately.
  • The whitening is accomplished in just a few appointments (possibly even just one).
  • It is more expensive than using at-home teeth whitening products.

    So what's the best teeth whitening system for you?

    Which method seems best for your lifestyle? Are you long on time and short on money. If so it sounds like at-home teeth whitening might be best choice.

    Do you have a big event coming up soon that you want to transform your smile for or maybe you just don't think you can incorporate do-it-yourself whitening treatments into your busy lifestyle? If so it seems professional treatments performed in your dentist's office might be the best solution.