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This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Crest.
Let me tell you, nothing will send a girl to the drugstore for tooth bleach faster than seeing a photo of her smiling self and her smiling gorgeous friend and noting that the friend has WHITE teeth and the girl, well, her teeth are icky and yellow.
Whoops. It happens, though, to those of us who love coffee, Earl Grey tea, and red wine. When I first saw that photo, in the summer of 2007, I went straight to the drugstore and bought the tooth bleach with the most superlatives on the label. Then I went home and put the bleach gunk in the little plastic trays and kept them in my mouth for a long, gaggy while. The product worked, but since I have a hair trigger gag reflex, it was hard for me to handle. I've bleached my teeth a few times since then, but, you know, it's not such a pleasant experience.
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a PR agency wanting to know if I'd like to try the new Crest Whitestrips, for free, in exchange for a blog post review. Duh. Do I? YEAH I DO! (I wonder if they saw that photo on Flickr?)
The box of Whitestrips came in the mail a few days later, and I was so sick with the flu that I couldn't bear to think about testing them out. When I was finally feeling better, I decided to get to work. Okay, first thing I noticed was that it takes two weeks of daily use to go through the box. My inner preteen kinda did a little stomp and eyeroll, because two weeks is like, forever, in tooth bleaching time. But, you can use it twice a day and blast through in a week if you want to, so that's fair enough.
The strips are packaged in individual little packets, good for traveling and folks on the go like me. (Ha, I wish!) When you open the packet, there are two strips on a little piece of plastic. You peel the strip off, and it's very sticky, that side that was up against the backing, and stick them in place on your teeth, careful to get as close to your gumline as possible without sticking them on your gums. It's not as hard as it sounds. Next, you have to press the strip onto your teeth, so the gluey part is hitting the tooth part and the magic can happen. These strips are much better than the trays, in my opinion, because they don't set off my gag reflex or make me look like a football player. Plus, you can totally drink water with them in. When the time is up (30 minutes) you peel the strip off and you're done. I usually brush my teeth with just water after I peel the strip off because I don't want to have gluey teeth and all. But, like it says on the box, you can absolutely use them while you commute to work, even if you have to be on a conference call, because they don't interfere with talking. They don't even make you drool, which is another bonus.
I'm not quite through the box (I opted for the two week plan over the double up for seven days plan) but so far, so much brighter! I tend to think with products like this, one is pretty much like another, ingredient wise (which, I may be way wrong, I'm just speculating), but where a company can do it right is in the method. I'm calling the Crest Whitestrips Advanced Seal a winner, and it's a product I'll buy myownself next time I need to brighten up a little bit.
