Teeth Whitening in Hocking, Perth

Whitening lifts the colour of your own teeth without adding anything to them. We offer take-home trays and in-chair treatment, and which suits you depends almost entirely on what is causing the staining.

It is also the one cosmetic treatment that removes nothing and commits you to nothing, which is why it is usually the first thing to try rather than the last.

What whitening can and cannot change

Tooth whitening treatments are designed to whiten your own teeth without any artificial additions. The gel works by breaking down the coloured molecules held within the enamel and the dentine beneath it. Nothing is cut, nothing is bonded on, and the shape of the tooth is unchanged at the end of it.

That is also the limit of it. Whitening changes colour and only colour. A chipped edge is still chipped, a rotated tooth is still rotated, and a tooth that is dark because the nerve inside it has died needs a different treatment altogether.

What is causing the colour matters more than which product is used on it.
Type of discolouration	Where it comes from	How it usually responds
Surface staining	Coffee, tea, red wine, curry, tobacco	Responds well, and often partly to a scale and polish before any whitening at all
Age-related yellowing	Enamel thinning over decades, letting the darker dentine underneath show through	Responds well and predictably
Tetracycline banding	An antibiotic taken while the teeth were forming in childhood	Least predictable. Improvement is often modest and takes much longer; veneers are sometimes the more honest answer
Fluorosis	Too much fluoride during tooth development, usually seen as white flecking	Variable. Whitening can even the background out, but the marks may become more or less obvious
A single dark tooth	Usually a nerve that has died, often years after a knock	Not treated by external whitening. Internal bleaching or a crown, after the tooth itself is dealt with
Stained fillings and crowns	The restoration itself has discoloured, or never matched	Whitening does nothing. The restoration is replaced, ideally after the natural teeth have been whitened

At a glance

Two methods: Custom take-home trays, or in-chair treatment
Take-home: About an hour a day for roughly two weeks
In-chair: One appointment; trays often supplied for topping up
Anything removed?: No. Whitening changes the shade of enamel, it does not cut it
Works on: Natural tooth structure only — not crowns, veneers or fillings
Before you book: An examination first. Decay or gum disease is treated before whitening

Take-home trays or in-chair

Both use the same chemistry at different concentrations over different lengths of time. Neither is better in the abstract.

Custom take-home trays

The most common choice, and the least expensive

Plastic trays are custom-made from models of your teeth, so the gel sits on the tooth and not on the gum.
Worn about an hour a day for roughly two weeks.
Gentler on sensitive teeth, because you control the pace and can skip a day.
The trays are yours afterwards, so topping up in a year costs only a new syringe of gel.
Requires you to actually do it, which is the usual reason a course under-delivers.

In-chair whitening

One appointment, done for you

A stronger gel applied under supervision, with the gums isolated and protected.
The whole thing happens in a single visit, which suits a fixed date.
More likely to cause short-term sensitivity, because the same change happens faster.
Usually sent home with trays anyway, for maintenance.
In-chair whitening at a dental practice is among the safest and quickest ways to whiten teeth: no healthy tooth structure is removed, so enamel is not damaged.

Home whitening works well in most cases, though the result depends on how stained the teeth are to begin with and on the type of staining. It usually takes about two weeks, wearing the trays for an hour a day, and it will not change the colour of crowns, veneers or fillings.

About the products sold over the counter

Not all of them are harmless, and the ones that are harmless mostly do not work.

Whitening strips, pens and pre-formed gum-shield trays share one problem: they are made for an average mouth, so the gel sits partly on the gum and unevenly on the teeth. That produces burnt gum margins and a patchy result, and it is the commonest reason somebody arrives having decided that whitening “does not work on me”.

Whitening toothpastes are a different matter and mostly do what they claim, which is less than people assume — they are abrasive, so they remove surface stain, and they cannot change the underlying shade of the tooth at all. Used hard and long, the more abrasive ones wear enamel, which makes teeth look yellower rather than whiter because more dentine shows through.

Charcoal powders and the various home remedies involving lemon juice or bicarbonate of soda are actively worth avoiding. Acid and abrasion both remove enamel permanently, and enamel is the white part.

Sensitivity, and how to keep it manageable

Some sensitivity during a course of whitening is common and it is temporary. It usually shows up as short, sharp twinges with cold air or cold drinks, and it settles within a few days of finishing.

Use a sensitive toothpaste for a fortnight before you start, not from the day it becomes a problem.
Shorten the wear time rather than stopping. Half an hour a day for four weeks reaches the same place as an hour a day for two.
Skip a day whenever you need to. Whitening is cumulative, so a gap costs you nothing but time.
Tell us if it is sharp rather than dull, or if it is one tooth rather than several. That is a different problem and it needs looking at.

Common questions

Tooth Whitening: your questions answered

How white will my teeth actually go?: It depends on where they start and what is causing the colour, which is why the honest answer comes after an examination rather than before one. As a rule, ordinary yellowing responds well and predictably; grey tones and tetracycline banding respond slowly and less completely. We will tell you at the consultation which of those you have.
How long does it last?: It varies with diet and habits. Coffee, tea, red wine and smoking will bring the colour back sooner. Most people top up with their take-home trays occasionally rather than repeating a full course, and because you keep the trays, a top-up costs only the gel.
Will it work on crowns, veneers or fillings?: No. Whitening changes natural tooth structure only, so existing crowns, veneers and fillings stay the shade they were made in. That is worth planning around: whiten first, wait a fortnight for the colour to settle, then have any front-tooth restorations matched to the new shade. Doing it the other way round means paying to replace them twice.
I have a wedding in three weeks. Is that enough time?: For take-home trays, yes, but only just — allow the full fortnight and then a few days for the shade to settle and any sensitivity to pass. In-chair is the safer choice inside three weeks. What we would not recommend is whitening in the last few days before an event, because that is when sensitivity is at its peak.
Can I whiten while pregnant or breastfeeding?: The usual advice is to wait. There is no evidence of harm, and equally no good evidence of safety, so the standard position is that an entirely elective treatment is worth postponing. A scale and polish, which removes surface staining, is perfectly safe and often does more than people expect.
Is one dark front tooth treated the same way?: No, and this is worth knowing before you spend anything. A single tooth that has darkened is usually one whose nerve has died, frequently years after a knock that seemed minor at the time. Whitening the outside will not change it. It needs an X-ray, and the treatment is usually root canal treatment followed by internal bleaching, or a crown.
Are the gels safe for enamel?: At the concentrations used under dental supervision, yes — no healthy tooth structure is removed, which is the whole reason whitening is reversible in a way that veneers are not. The risks are gum irritation from gel sitting where it should not, and sensitivity, both of which are what custom trays and an examination beforehand are for.
How often can I top up?: Most people find one or two nights with the trays every six to twelve months holds the colour. There is no benefit in doing it constantly, and continual use is more likely to leave you with ongoing sensitivity than with whiter teeth. Bring your trays to your check-up and we will look at how they are fitting.

All frequently asked questions

Next step

Book about tooth whitening

We will go through the options, what each involves, and what your health fund covers, before anything begins.

Call (08) 9306 2755

Which system do you use?

Which system do you use?

Tooth Whitening

Which system do you use?

What whitening can and cannot change

Which system do you use?

Take-home trays or in-chair

About the products sold over the counter

Sensitivity, and how to keep it manageable

Tooth Whitening: your questions answered

Book about tooth whitening

Which system do you use?

Which system do you use?