If you’re a fan and follower of reality stars and influencers, you’ll struggle to scroll through your Instagram feed and not see an influencer promoting the latest teeth whitening products. From toothpaste to blue-light machines, to strips and gels, there’s a huge selection to choose from. And with many celebrities choosing to have pearly white veneers put over their real teeth, who knows what really works?
So I decided to try one of the most popularly promoted brands Boutique Whitening – plugged by the likes of Love Island stars Georgia Louise Harrison and Amy Day, TOWIE's star Liam ‘Gatsby’ Blackwell and Gogglebox star Amy Tapper – to see whether I could really get the gleaming smile so many reality stars have.
Like many other similarly promoted teeth whitening brands, Boutique Whitening is a do-it-at-home treatment. But unlike many of the others, especially ones you just buy online, the Boutique Whitening procedure begins with several check-ups and hygiene treatments to ensure that it’s the right product for you.
With around four cups of coffee or tea a day being my normal, as well as being partial to the odd cigarette, my teeth are definitely not as white as they could be, despite being an avid tooth brusher, flosser and mouthwasher.
During my first appointment at Tooth Club Dentist, I had a dental check-up – which will always happen before you decide to go ahead with any whitening products, to make sure your enamel is strong enough for the whitening and there’ll be no complications. I was given the option to have Day or Night whitening trays – the main difference being one is worn for 90 minutes a day and the other is milder and worn overnight.
The Day treatments contain around 6% hydrogen peroxide, while the overnight gel use around 10% carbamide peroxide. The difference between these two substances is that hydrogen peroxide is more intense and works faster, but carbamide peroxide won’t make your teeth as sensitive.
My trays were ready two weeks later, and after brief check-up, I took them home to try. I was worried at first about the prospect of sleeping with them in my mouth – would it be annoying? Would it taste funny? But I quickly realised it was exactly like the retainer I’ve been wearing ever since I had my braces off at 15.
It’s made clear where to put the gel by the little dots on the retainer, so after applying the gel, I put the two trays on my upper and lower set of teeth and went to bed without any discomfort whatsoever. In the morning, upon instruction from the dentist, I gently brushed the trays with a spare toothbrush I had to clean them and ran them under cold water, and went about my day, until I did the whole process again that night.
I didn’t notice a difference the next day, but after four or five days I definitely noticed a whiter and brighter smile. And after two weeks, I was over the moon that my teeth had jumped around five shades whiter than they had been.
I was worried about the sensitivity of my teeth being affected, as I’d read reviews by people trying tray whitening where people have said that they’ve struggled drinking cold drinks after and they’ve even been in pain. I definitely wasn’t in pain after being whitened with Boutique, but I definitely noticed an increase in sensitivity, with a slight discomfort with cold water in my mouth.
Another downside of it all is that it doesn’t come cheap. The cost for this is £330, a one-off charge, and if you work through your syringes of gels and feel like you need more, or want a top up later down the line, it’s £25 a syringe. But the up side is that it actually does whiten and brighten your smile, without looking blindingly unnatural.
All in all, I’d thoroughly recommend Boutique Whitening as method of whitening your teeth safely and successfully – it may not be cheap, but it’s a celebrity-endorsed means of teeth whitening that genuinely works.
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See more from the Tooth Club at toothclub.co.uk and follow @toothclubuk on Instagram. Find out more about Boutique Whitening at boutiquewhitening.com