How White Can You Go?
By Valerie Latona
It used to be that having a Chiclets-colored smile was the best you could do. Not anymore. Now there's superwhite. Dentists' traditional tooth-color range, of more than 15 colors, just won't cut it these days for the stars among us; NYC celebrity dentist Irwin Smigel has added two ultrawhites to his designer-smile palette - and Calvin Klein's got one of them. "There are two ways to get that ultra-white look: bleaching and veneers (porcelain fake teeth that fit over your real ones)", explains Smigel, who also has his own line of nonabrasive whitening toothpaste called Supersmile.
Veneers permanently change the color and size of your teeth with no complications; bleaching is more tricky. Because bleaching kits never contained fluoride, you could only bleach for a short time before experiencing tooth sensitivity. Now, new kits like Opalescence (800-552-5512) and Nite White Excel (800-348-8806) have tooth-strengthening fluoride to decrease sensitivity. The result: People are bleaching longer, and their teeth are getting whiter. Although no studies have been done on the dangers of long-term bleaching, even Smigel says that bleaching consistently for more than three weeks could cause nerve problems- and possibly even necessitate root canals.