Professional Teeth Whitening Professional teeth whitening services for medical clinics.

Key Difference #1: The Tray

Over the counter kits use stock bleaching trays. A kit from SHINE, or from your dentist, will be fully designed and created to fit the teeth of the person using them. That’s why the kit from the dentist costs $300-400 – the cost is in the customization and the labor involved in making sure that the tray is comfortable to wear and provides a close custom fit. Of course, the cost of manning and running the dental practice is high – and that’s why the dentist’s prices are so much more expensive than SHINE’s. We provide your practice with an easy to use polymer and catalyst that you can combine to help your client capture a perfect dental impression, and then we save you time, training and money by producing the custom tray in our outsourced facility. That means savings for your clients, and new profits for you, since teeth whitening is a popular service you can offer without no new equipment or training required. It will be very critical that the custom tray fit closely to the gumline for the front 8 or so teeth on the top and bottom. It’s that line of delineation that keeps the professional strength gel on the teeth and away from the gums where sensitivity and irritation occurs. 

Having a comfortable tray is also critical to the customer’s willingness to use it. A small and flexible tray is easy enough to wear while doing housework, checking the morning emails, or even to wear to the gym, while a stock tray or a semi-fitted boil-n-bite tray is going to be heavier and more cumbersome to wear. So while any tray can deliver whitening gel with some degree of effectiveness, this is an area where the real magic is in having a comfortable tray with a close custom fit. 

Key Difference #2: The Gel 

Over-the-counter kits average 2-4% peroxide whitening agent in their gels, cylinders and whitening strips. That’s not a bad thing, but especially given the high price of these products, imagine the number of hours of whitening required with a product that delivers 2-4% whitening agent as compared to a professional strength gel that offers 22% strength. Of the alternatives, carbamide peroxide is the more stable and robust alternative that is almost always preferred to hydrogen peroxide whitening gel. Typical internet products do not even disclose the strength of their whitening agent, and even the expensive kits from a dental practice may offer strengths of only 10-15%. SHINE’s gel is very powerful – clients need only a tiny bit of SHINE gel, generally only the size of a match head for the front of the reservoir for each tooth in the whitening tray that is visible when you smile, which is typically just the front 6-8 teeth. There is no need to waste gel or increase sensitivity by using more gel, whitening more teeth, or applying gel to both the fronts and the back of the teeth you want to whiten. With powerful gel, you can use it sparingly and for a much shorter period of time. Depending on your sensitivity, you may whiten for 15 minutes to an hour or so at a time. The initial whitening may take 7-10 days of use for optimum impact, but after that, you can refresh your whitening only as needed, which depending on your lifestyle habits may range from once every week or two weeks to only sporadic touch ups before special events. 

So these are the primary differences – and hopefully it’s very clear why a custom fit tray and professional strength whitening gel is the best and most practical option for you.