I’ve been using whitening toothpaste my entire life. My teeth still aren’t white.
I don’t smoke. I don’t drink wine. I don’t drink coffee. I brush twice a day, floss occasionally and only use mouthwash whenever I have a hot date (frequently).
Anecdotally, my experience means nothing. Nonetheless, this is a mystery that bears digging into. We’re supposed to squirt paste into our mouths and smear it around every single day of our lives, twice a day for two minutes. And we’re not allowed to swallow it? This has never struck anyone as being a little suspicious?
Is it not weird when our teeth aren’t even meant to be white? Natural teeth are slightly yellow or somewhat grey-ish, depending on how your dice rolled. Our obsession with white teeth is uniquely American — it’s a trend in Japan to have crooked teeth. Perfectly white teeth are another unachievable beauty standard, like Spongebob-level thigh gaps.
Yet, we strive for it. They say the first thing people see is your smile, which can be crippling to someone’s self-esteem if theirs is crooked or yellow. Take this Colgate ad; it suggests stained teeth are more distracting than having Escheresque anatomy.
Marketers have a history of pushing these ideas into our collective minds. Listerine’s done it before, pitching bad breath as serious medical condition in need of a cure. It coined the phrase “often a bridesmaid but never a bride” to shame single women into buying more mouthwash.
A more recent example by the dental industry is the “tissue test” ad. Where two conventionally attractive supermodels panic over failing said test; their teeth weren’t quite as white as tissue paper. Anyone who tries it will fail too; this test is impossible to pass.
Your teeth will never be as white as paper through brushing unless your toothpaste is mixed with nail polish. Because whitening toothpastes don’t whiten teeth. All they do is scratch off stains. Toothpaste labeled as “whitening” only has higher levels of silica, what they put in “do not eat” packets, to act as grit to scrape away stains.
The whiteness of your teeth is determined by the color of your inner dentin and the translucency of your outer enamel. Whitening toothpastes only act at the surface level. Toothpaste that is too abrasive can scratch away your enamel, what keeps teeth white, and once your enamel’s gone it’s hasta la vista forever.
Only the boldest of con men would sell something as “whitening” knowing darn well it won’t actually whiten. Marketers burdened us with another insecurity and sold us a answer that falls just short of a solution. This delusion is drilled into us by a young age by people like Chip Skylark and reinforced by the flunkies on Madison Avenue.
Please do brush your teeth, they need a good scrub down. Unless you have sensitive teeth, it really doesn’t matter which toothpaste you use. I use whichever has the prettiest packaging to impress guests who use my bathroom. But remember, George Washington had hippopotamus parts for teeth and they named a whole monument after him.