I've always wanted to whiten my teeth, but the price tag of most professional dental treatments has always deterred me from doing so. I've eyed Crest's 3D Whitestrips for a long time and finally splurged (and I use that term lightly because it is cheap for a whitening treatment...around $50). There are many different types of Crest Whitestrips but I chose the Professional Effects version with 20 treatments.
Each treatment comes with two strips, one for the bottom set of teeth and one for the top set of teeth. The strip is only long enough to cover your most front teeth (fang to fang), so don't expect to get your molars whitened too. You should apply the bottom strip first. To apply the strips, peel them and stick them on your teeth starting where the teeth meets the gum. Press over the strip until it sticks onto your teeth and into all crevices (this is important to get an even distribution of bleach) and fold over the rest of the strip behind your teeth. You use one treatment per day and leave them in for 30 mins each time. I believe you're also not supposed to use this more than twice a year.
Immediately upon application, the strips were a lot longer than I expected them to be. I already have a small mouth so these strips really stretched far back to my mouth, covering almost two of my molars. It was also more slippery than I expected them to be. These strips are meant to be "strong grip, no slip" but I felt like it wasn't as sticky as it could've been on my teeth, especially near the later treatments. In fact, when I applied the strips, it reacted with my teeth immediately and formed a foamy, white substance. All the application videos I watched on this product never mentioned this so maybe it was just a chemical reaction to my teeth. Either way, it was really unexpected. It was almost hard pressing down on the strips for them to stick because the foam wasn't helping them grip.
For some background, I have pretty sensitive teeth. I can't even bite into popsicles or ice cream. These aren't supposed to hurt but if you do experience pain, reviewers have suggested to take a one day break between treatments. I did experience some days with painful throbbing but it wasn't unbearable. I just waited a day until my next treatment and it was perfectly fine.
Results are meant to be seen within a few days of treatment and many reviewers had corroborated this. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly see results until around the sixth day. The whitening was definitely more prominent in my two buck teeth than my other teeth, perhaps because they stick out more than the others.
 |
| Sorry for the dry lips! |
All in all, this treatment wasn't as effective as I had hoped. To be fair, I did drink a lot of teeth staining substances (bad Emily!). I still don't regret buying this relatively inexpensive product and would use it again if my teeth became really yellow again. However, don't expect extremely gorgeous pearly whites from this product. For that, you might just want to go to a professional.
