Teeth Whitening

Whitening your teeth can rejuvenate your whole smile, and give you a new-found confidence to set and achieve goals in your personal and professional life.

We offer two world-class whitening systems, from BoutiqueTM and EnlightenTM here at Shawbirch Dental.

What is teeth whitening?

Teeth whitening is a popular cosmetic dental treatment that whitens the shade of your teeth. There are many factors that can cause discolouration, including drinking coloured food and drink (such as tea, coffee, turmeric, green juice, red wine), a poor brushing technique and smoking, to name just a few.

Professional teeth whitening is completely tailored to you, whether you’re looking to make a slight improvement to your smile, or you’re looking to completely transform the appearance of a single dull and discoloured tooth.

All professional whitening treatments use custom-made whitening trays, which keep your gums safe at all times, protecting them from coming into contact with the whitening agent. We strongly advise staying well away from any over-the-counter whitening treatments, which do not use custom whitening trays.

We offer the 2 following whitening systems at the practice:

• Boutique™: this is an at-home whitening system which consists of a whitening gel that’s applied to your custom-made whitening trays. Patients can choose whether to wear their whitening trays during the day (2 weeks) or night (4 weeks) – whatever fits in with their day-to-day routine.
• Enlighten™: the only teeth whitening treatment that can whiten your teeth by up to 16 shades, EnlightenTM is world-class. EnlightenTM combines at-home whitening of up to 4 weeks with an in-practice whitening session. The duration of your treatment will depend on the shade you’re hoping to achieve.

For more information on the Enlighten system, please visit the website, here

Take a look at the animated video below to see how professional teeth whitening works to improve the shade of your teeth.

Or download an instruction manual here

Single discoloured tooth

When the nerve in the tooth dies it can release chemicals that cause the tooth to look dull, darker and not matched to the neighbouring teeth. This often happens when a tooth is knocked or traumatised and can still occur even after the tooth has had a root canal treatment. Many patients think the only way to treat this is with a veneer, however single tooth whitening gives fantastic results without the need to remove any enamel off the front of the tooth.

The dentist will take an x-ray of the tooth to ensure the root canal treatment is satisfactory and there are no signs of long lasting infection. Custom trays are made to whiten just the one tooth. The filling sitting on top of the root canal is removed and you can whiten the teeth at home during the day to improve the appearance of the single tooth. Results are seen within 3 days but may take up to a week to get the final shade match.

This is often done in combination with full mouth tooth whitening for an even more aesthetic result.

Why teeth whitening?

• Have beautifully white teeth.
• Natural-looking results.
• Smile confidently.
• Healthy-looking smiles are associated with self-care.
• Simple treatment, no drilling required.
• Studies have shown that the effects of teeth whitening can last for up to 10 years if a good at-home dental routine is followed and teeth staining food, drink and lifestyle habits are kept to a minimum.
• Can easily be “topped up” every few years, before special events.