Will Teeth Whitening Work On Veneers?

If you’ve had problems with your oral health in the past, you might have veneers and you may be wondering whether or not you can whiten those in the same manner that you would traditionally whiten your other teeth. If you’re thinking about using a paste that bleaches those veneers or even the types of toothpaste that are supposed to make the teeth whiter, you’re probably not doing much more than spinning your wheels.

These types of methods are not generally effective on veneers, and neither are the strips that are so popular for whitening teeth. The truth is, if you have veneers it’s important to consider a few things before you actually get them in order to maintain the level of brightness that you would like. If you already have veneers and you’re looking to whiten your teeth, your options are somewhat limited.

That being said, there are still one or two things that you can try.

Why Don’t Regular Tooth Whitening Methods Work On Veneers?

In short, they don’t work because they’re designed to work on actual teeth consisting of enamel. Veneers are made of an entirely different material that is virtually impervious to these types of whitening methods. If you’re trying to whiten your teeth using toothpaste or bleach, you might end up with two very different colors, the whiter bleached appearance from your real teeth and the virtually unchanged color of your veneers. This probably isn’t the look that you’re going for, so you might want to consider your other options and see if one of those works better for you as opposed to trying the older whitening methods that aren’t quite as effective.

What Options Are Available When You Have Veneers?

The best way to ensure that your veneers are the color you want them to be is to have them adjusted before they’re ever placed into your mouth. There’s a special technique that is frequently used by the companies that manufacture veneers which can adjust the color to fit that of your actual teeth. Therefore, you can anticipate this and have them adjust the color to your desired level of brightness before you actually get the veneers, provided that you know ahead of time that’s what you need to do.

If you already have them and you’re concerned about them not being white enough, you can try a blue LED light on them in order to see if you can get them to better match the color of your actual teeth.

Ghost White has a system like this that is used together with hydrogen peroxide. Although it may not whiten your veneers as much as your actual teeth, it’s still a better option than the more traditional teeth whitening products that have been available for years, as they are completely ineffective when it comes to veneers.

It’s not likely that you’re going to see the same results with veneers that you will see with your real teeth, regardless of the teeth whitening method being used. Due to the materials veneers are manufactured from, it just doesn’t work that way. However, you’ll likely be glad to know that veneers don’t have a tendency to stain over time as much as your actual teeth, either.

Therefore, the goal should be to reach a happy medium where your real teeth and your veneers are able to appear much the same color, thereby making it look like you don’t really have veneers at all.

Originally published at https://ghostwhite.com on January 17, 2020.