Whitening and Bleaching Options
Professional Tray/Gel Bleaching
Custom professional bleach trays made from impressions of your upper and lower teeth can be made to fit very close to the teeth and restrict leakage of saliva under the tray and bleach out of the tray. This keeps the bleach against the teeth and helps to maintain its pH and avoid getting diluted or neutralized by enzymes in the saliva. They also limit bleach gel waste. The reason this approach is considered the standard is the ability of the bleach to penetrate deeper into the dentin layer and give a more stabile and durable result, which means less bleaching will be needed in the long run to maintain a given level of lightening. With custom trays, we presently use NovaWhite professional bleaching gel, which has a pH of neutral 7. We show you how easy it is to apply gel into the tray, and position the tray onto your teeth. Many people will do this at bedtime to get the maximum bleach time of 8-10 hours while sleeping, but even wearing a tray for 2-4 hours utilizes 50% of the gel’s strength. Carbamide peroxide gel is formulated to convert gradually over time to hydrogen peroxide, which does the bleaching. 20% carbamide peroxide converts to 7% hydrogen peroxide.