Hi, I have dental bonding on a few teeth because of chips as well as between my two front teeth because of a small gap. They’re starting to stain and it looks weird next to my natural tooth color. Do you know if Supersmile toothpaste works on dental bonding? If so, how long does it take for it to remove the stains? I see they have an accelerator kit. I’m guessing that would be the one to use, right?
James
Dear James,
You have some great questions here. I’m actually going to start with your last question and work my way backward. I would not use the accelerator kit, but just the standard Supersmile Whitening Toothpaste. This is because the accelerator kit adds a whitening ingredient, such as you would get with teeth whitening kits, though not nearly as strong as what you’d get through a dentist. This will utilize a peroxide gel. While that will whiten your natural teeth some, it will do nothing for the bonding. The result will be them having a greater disparity than when you started.
Supersmile toothpaste, on the other hand, is great at removing stains, even from cosmetic dental work, with one exception we’ll get to in a moment. Your second question asked how long it will take the toothpaste to remove the stains. As long as it is a surface stain, it will begin to remove it immediately. This is because, unlike other whitening toothpaste, it removes the stain enzymatically. Its active ingredient is Calprox, which dissolves the protein pellicle layer. Stains attach themselves to the pellicle so when that is gone, the stain is gone.
As for your first question, that depends on the type of stains. As long as your dental bonding is still polished and the stains are on the surface of the polish, then, yes, Supersmile can totally remove those stains. However, if the polish is gone, then Supersmile cannot restore the polish and the bonding will just keep attracting stains. The only way to fix that is to have the polishing repaired or to replace the bonding.
This is one of the reasons I steer patients away from your typical whitening toothpaste. They use abrasives to “whiten” teeth, which damages both the dental bonding as well as the enamel on the surface of your natural teeth.
This blog is brought to you by East Cobb Dentist Dr. Cristi Cheek.