My Journey with Teeth Whiteners (+ A Giveaway!)

Smile Brilliant offered me a free whitening kit in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I didn’t get into teeth whitening systems until a few years ago, when I suddenly developed a desire for having a naturally whiter smile so that I didn’t have to edit my selfies too much (#firstworldproblems?). It’s really more for vanity. Since I drink latte and tea just a few times a year, I fortunately don’t have the need to constantly fight off common agents that prevent a whiter smile.

I don’t think my journey with teeth whitening systems has been as extensive as I’m sure it has been for other people, but I nevertheless have experienced with several that I’d like to discuss.

I have tried an ultrasonic toothbrush, a service that also mailed you a whitening kit (I’ll call it “Georgia”), those typical whitening strips that you find in most stores, and most recently, Smile Brilliant.

After finishing my Smile Brilliant treatment I’ve come to realize that what I value the most in a teeth whitening system is CONVENIENCE. And unfortunately, I didn’t find much convenience in Smile Brilliant’s offering. (Bear in mind this is MY take and it may not reflect that of many others of its customers.)

Other Treatments I’ve Tried

The ultrasonic toothbrushes my family and I used years ago has been one of the best tools to overall thoroughly clean our teeth. That thing yielded whiter smiles by instinct, almost as a byproduct of the naturally clean teeth. Each session lasted 10-20 minutes, and I could notice a significant difference with the look and feel of the teeth after each one.

The kit I’m calling “Georgia” is one where you get the whitening gels + a little lamp to shine on your teeth during each whitening session. The “trays” you pretty much make yourself by heating up the material in hot water, sticking it in your mouth, and molding it to your teeth. Each session lasted maybe ten minutes or less and I got good results in the end.

About two weeks before my husband and I got married, and so that my smile would shine on our Wedding :), I decided to once again use a whitening system I had tried before and whose results I liked: Those strips you can find at grocery stores. I didn’t get the brand you see advertised the most: Instead, I went for the store brand. Same exact ingredients and prep, but at a fraction of the cost. Each session lasts ~30 minutes.

This treatment has been my favorite. You can see the results in the picture above from our Wedding Day and on the one below from our honeymoon!

Just an impromptu, unedited shot while we were waiting for lunch one afternoon during our honeymoon in Hawaii <3

Smile Brilliant

(Scroll to the bottom for the giveaway!)

Enter Smile Brilliant. I was recently invited to participate in an influencer campaign and after seeing other individuals’ results with it, I was excited for the opportunity to try this new brand.

But I think my excitement quickly faded away as soon as I saw all the documentation and instructions included with the whitening kit itself. I was honestly not expecting so much of it!

In my particular kit I got a few syringes with whitening gels, a few others with desensitizing gels, blue and white putty to model my trays, and plastic holders to press onto my teeth to make those trays. Oh and sheets with instructions and pictures showing what to do and not to do. Plus an envelope to mail my putty “casts” to the lab so they could make the trays.

To get started, you mix together both the putties in a little container. You have to do this quickly before the putty mixture hardens. You then mold this mixture onto the included plastic “holders” (for lack of a better word) and you put each holder below your top teeth or above your bottom teeth, depending on which cast you’re making.

The caveat is that once you finish making the casts for your trays, you have to send them to a lab and wait a handful of days to get the clear soft trays.

Then the real work begins (as if it hadn’t begun before, huh?). For 7-14 days, and for at least 45 minutes each time, you place each tray where it belongs on your teeth and go on with your day. I liked that these trays were soft and flexible enough to where I could still talk with them in my mouth.

But what I didn’t like was ALL.THE.WORK involved. From the process of making the casts for your trays, to all the rules you ought to follow to ensure the trays are effective, to having to desensitize your teeth after each treatment, the process was was way more involved than I thought.

Don’t believe me? Here’s an outline of the steps, followed by more tips underneath:

1. Brush teeth with water (not toothpaste, fluoride slows down the whitening process)
2. Whiten for 45 minutes to three hours
3. Brush teeth with a non-whitening toothpaste
4. Rinse trays out with cool water
5. Desensitize for 20 minutes (do not drink or eat for one hour after each session)
6. Remove trays, but do not rinse your mouth or brush your teeth, just spit (leave a thin layer of desensitizing gel on your teeth)
7. Sleep! It is the best to whiten before bed so you are not introducing any staining food or drinks.

The average person will need 7-14 daily applications to remove all stains from their teeth. And remember.. One gel syringe is 3-4 full applications (covering both the upper and lower teeth).

To obtain the best results, avoid consuming coffee, tea, dark colored soda, red wine, berries, candy, red sauces, beets, chocolate or any other foods that have a propensity to stain your teeth for 24 hours after a teeth whitening session. This will help your whitening process!

After my experience and judging by my results, no, I wouldn’t recommend Smile Brilliant to those who identify with what I described.

However, my circumstances probably differ from yours, making you a good candidate for this system!

For instance, days after I started it, we adopted a puppy :D AND I injured my back :(. Suddenly I didn’t have “whitening teeth” at the top of my priorities list.

BEFORE

AFTER: There IS some improvement.

This is another AFTER picture, taken about ONE MONTH after the first AFTER I finished treatment.

This is the last AFTER picture. I took it TWO MONTHS after I finished treatment.

Moreover, I like raspberries and blackberries; we get them often at Costco. But guess what can also stain teeth: yes, berries. I stopped eating berries for a few days while I was on this , but at some point I admit I forgot and went and bought more berries after running out. It wasn’t until I finished treatment that I realized what I had done!

I also didn’t desensitize after each session. My teeth simply stopped needing it. The first couple of whitening sessions were brutal, and my teeth were in so much pain, that I could only whiten for a few minutes each time. I only desensitized twice total. Then I started applying tiny drops of whitening gel to each tooth hole in the tray and my teeth somehow adapted, letting me whiten each time for 45 minutes to two hours.

Those are the few caveats I can think of that may have negatively affected my success with Smile Brilliant. I’m not a fan of writing bad reviews, but I also wish I had known more about what this system entailed before I accepted Smile Brilliant’s invitation.

To be fair, it seems like a well-researched and executed program, and like I said, if your circumstances differ from mine, and have perhaps more time, then by all means you should give this a try.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

In fact, I invite one of you lucky readers to try outSmile Brilliant at NO cost to you!

Just because I wasn’t a fan doesn’t mean it won’t be the best whitening treatment one of you has ever encountered, so I’d love to give you the chance to win one kit!

ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY HERE: SMILEBRILLIANT.COM/G/XOANNIE

• The giveaway is for a $149 Smile Brilliant credit. It is open for 1 week (7 days after blog post date) and open to USA, UK, Australia and Canadian residents.
• Smile Brilliant hosts the giveaway on its own website through an internal platform so you don’t have to worry about third-party websites selling your email addresses.

WANT A COUPON INSTEAD?

If you’ve tried it and liked it and don’t want to wait to see if you won the giveaway, then the 20% coupon code Smile Brilliant shared with me for my readers is just the thing you need!

For 20% off your Smile Brilliant order, just enter code xoannie20 at checkout.

IN SHORT

I think the value of bloggers doesn’t come from people who love 100% of what they’re given 100% of the time.

Real, honest bloggers aren’t afraid to say “I don’t recommend it” or “It wasn’t for me but I think you’ll like it.”

You may LOVE it so much you’ll end up reordering for life! Why not give it a try? Enter here: <<LINK>>

How has YOUR journey with teeth whiteners been like? Which has been your favorite? What do you think about Smile Brilliant?
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