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One way for your age to really show is through your teeth. Unfortunately, with age, those pearly whites naturally darken, and that bright smile you had at 20 may have dulled to an unattractive yellow by the time you hit 40. This is especially true if you are a smoker, or if you drink tea or coffee. While there are ways to whiten your teeth quickly — using high power bleach formulations in a dentist’s office - this isn’t cheap. Because of this, many individuals try tooth whitening toothpaste to freshen their dull teeth. Is a whitening toothpaste really effective?

Naturally, when you see commercials featuring brilliantly white smiles, you think that all you need to do is brush a few times with a certain brand of teeth whitening toothpaste and you’ll have a mega-watt smile. As usual, these claims are highly overstated. If your teeth are showing the signs of years of smoking and heavy coffee drinking, chances are toothpaste alone will not be able to whiten your teeth.

While teeth whitening toothpastes will remove surface stains and brighten teeth somewhat, chances are you’re not going to see a significant difference in color. There are abrasives and detergents contained within tooth whitening toothpaste. Some also have carbomide peroxide, which is an agent that lightens tooth enamel. Unfortunately, for some people their discolored teeth problem extends beyond the surface enamel. As you get older, the inner layer of the tooth, called the dentin, starts darkening, which in turn makes the tooth appear yellow, especially as the outer enamel layer starts to thin. Teeth whitening toothpastes can’t reach the dentin layer, so they won’t bring about the color change necessary to really whiten your teeth. The upside is, while they are generally more abrasive than regular toothpaste, they are usually safe to use and won’t cause significant damage to the teeth.

While whitening teeth with toothpaste may not be especially effective, these pastes can help remove the surface stains and slightly brighten the appearance of the teeth that haven’t yet yellowed at the dentin level. To get teeth really white, you need a higher level of hydrogen peroxide than what dental teeth whitening systems, e.g., online whitening tooth bleaching products, can give you. Even when high levels of hydrogen peroxide are used for tooth whitening, it may not work for people with darkening of the dentin.

What is the bottom line? While toothpaste may not be significantly effective in whitening teeth, it appears to be able to remove surface staining that can dull your smile, and it’s certainly doesn’t cost as much as in-house dental bleaching.