About a year ago now my husband and I came to the conclusion that we weren’t happy with the way our lives were going. This had nothing to do with our relationship which was and still is very strong! It had everything to do with our lifestyle. It was becoming clear that we were quickly marching down the path to an unhealthy future. We were suffering from health problems and a lack of energy that made enjoying time with our kids somewhat difficult. We made the commitment to change – first by starting to follow the Keto way of eating and then by exercising. First, we started hiking and then we started running. Things got so much better! So many of our health problems vanished or improve dramatically and suddenly we were enjoying life again! But! Starting keto did have one strange side effect. We became completely addicted to coffee! Coffee is not a friend to your teeth if you happen to enjoy your pearly whites. You can imagine how thrilled I was when we were contacted by Smile Brilliant to try out their custom teeth whitening trays!
I let my husband be the test subject for this project. He drinks a lot more coffee than I do. I enjoy my coffee but he’s a full blown coffee addict. I even bought him a flavored coffee sampler pack last year for Christmas!
Be Confident with Smile Brilliant’s custom Teeth Whitening Trays!
I received this product in exchange for my honest feedback and opinion. All opinions expressed are my own honest and uninfluenced opinion!
To be honest, neither my husband or I have ever done any sort of teeth whitening, asides from perhaps, using teeth whitening toothpaste! So, we were a little bit unsure of what we had gotten ourselves into when we signed up for this project. Thankfully the people over at Smile Brilliant are absolute gems when it comes to providing information and instructions for their custom teeth whitening trays.
Whitening your teeth with teeth whitening trays does take a bit more time but I feel like they are more effective and comfortable than the strips – which don’t contour perfectly to your teeth or the various charcoal type products which just sounds abrasive.
Receiving your Kit
The kit for creating your teeth whitening trays came surprisingly fast. It was only a few days after confirming our desire to test this product that we found it sitting on our doorstep! The kit we received came with a plethora of information including, tips and suggestions for getting the best results and plenty of materials to make our impressions. I found this to be somewhat of a comfort because I have never made impressions before and I was sure we would mess it up at least once (we totally did! But had absolutely no problem redoing it and getting some helpful tips from the people at Smile Brilliant so our second attempt was spot on.)
Creating Your Impressions
This was the part of the process that worried me the most! Would it be comfortable? Would we mess it up? What if this stuff hardens and sticks to our teeth and we can never get it off again?!? Alright, that last one might be a bit of an exaggeration but it crossed my mind! My husband of course merely rolled his eyes and we got on with the process.
It turns out that all of my worries were for nothing. The kit provided us with two trays, plenty of catalysts to make the impression putty and a helpful picture guide showing the most common mistakes people make while creating their impressions for teeth whitening trays.
Creating the trays only takes a few minutes really and my husband reported that they weren’t overly uncomfortable. I mean you do have a tray in your mouth filled with putty so it does feel a bit odd! Nothing worth stressing over though – in fact, he just kept playing his video game while we did it. I do have a few tips to make it easier for you should you give these a try (or win the exciting giveaway below!)
Quick Tips for Creating your Impressions
- Make sure you fully mix the two catalysts! There is a bright blue one and a white one. You want them to combine into a paler blue color with no streaks of either original colors. I was worried about doing this fast enough the first time (I didn’t want it to start hardening in my hands!) While the putty does start to react right away don’t worry! It doesn’t take very long to get them fully combined and rolled out into a log on the tray. Go quickly but make sure its all fully combined otherwise it just won’t work right!
- Be careful about fitting them into your mouth. You want to make sure the tray is centered as best as you can with your teeth in the middle of the putty. You don’t want to be scraping the sides of the tray.
- Press the tray onto the teeth slowly. You don’t want to bite down as doing so can create little drag marks which will mess up your impressions.
- Leave your trays in for the full recommended time. Taking them out too soon will let your impression collapse and it will be unsuitable for making your trays.
Using Your Custom Teeth Whitening Trays
Once you have created your impressions you ship them back to Smile Brilliant and they make you some custom trays. I don’t know what I was envisioning when I thought ‘custom trays’ but the only thing I could think of were those terribly uncomfortable ones I had to wear at the dentist as a child. This might have been part of the reason I let my husband be the guinea pig here!
What we got back, however, was something so far from this that it was impressive. The trays are clear and flexible and tiny. In fact, you can barely even see them when you have them in. If you have to answer the door while whitening your teeth no worries! The probably won’t even notice!
The whitening process is a multistep process but thankfully its spelled out for you in our kit. I love that all the information I required was handy and printed out for me on little cards! No ‘if you need more help go here’ type of instructions. I love the internet but I don’t want to have to google in the middle of holding some teeth whitening trays!
The process is very simple!
- Brush teeth with water & dry to the best of your ability
- Use the whitening gel for 45min to 3 hours – its best to start with the lower time frame in order to judge our sensitivity levels. Some people do experience a bit of sensitivity while whitening and this is completely normal. My husband only experienced a very mild sensitivity when we did the process two days in a row so we learned to skip a day between treatments and all was good!
- Once you have completed whitening its time to brush your teeth again, this time with toothpaste! Dry them to the best of your ability
- Use the desensitizing gel for 15 to 20 minutes. This helps to rehydrate your teeth after the whitening process.
- Remove your trays and any excess gel but don’t brush! Allowing a small layer of the desensitizing gel on your teeth so that it can continue to absorb.
Our Final thoughts on using the Teeth Whitening Trays from Smile Brilliant
So as a family who has never done this before we really had no idea what sort of results we would get from this. I have to say that we started noticing a real difference after the first couple of treatments. Far more of a result then we expected to get! I admit that we were a touch skeptical about this whole thing and my husband even joked about the ‘things he has to do for my blog!’ on numerous occasions while we were making the impressions and waiting for our trays to arrive.
But! After we started noticing results things changed. Suddenly he was perfectly happy to spend the time needed for the treatment (honestly he spent all of it on his phone while in bed most nights) It was hardly a change in routine and they say before bed is the best time to do the treatment anyway so it worked out! You just set a few timers and go about your normal routine (minus snacking and such of course)
A lot of the time on this blog we talk about gaining self-confidence through life changes and pushing yourself to try new things. But, it really is the smallest things that sometimes make a huge difference in our confidence levels and being able to smile with confidence is a pretty big one. My husband has always felt strange smiling in photos and while that has gotten a lot better thanks to our lifestyle changes and feeling better about the way he looks I really think that this whitening process has helped a lot too!
If this is you I have some GREAT NEWS!
The people over at Smile Brilliant want all of us to be confident about our smiles and so they have agreed to a giveaway! Follow the link below to enter and win a teeth whitening kit valued at around $149! This Giveaway is open to my readers based in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States! Check it out and enter below!
In addition to the amazing giveaway, they are also offering my readers a 15% off coupon code: talesfromhome15 so go out there and smile with confidence!
Enter The Giveaway
I think I should try this out as I drink a lot of coffee.
Coffee is life! Sign up for the giveaway and maybe you’ll get lucky!
Ah it’s so great that you have found a system that works. I have whitened my teeth in the past and it made an enormous difference to my confidence. I found myself hiding behind a hand when I spoke which only really drew more attention to it! Thankfully these treatments have improved over the years with safer formulas. Great post, thanks for sharing your experience.
Amy
They worked quite well! We were really pleased with the results and the entire process. The people at Smile Brilliant are so helpful and kind!
I don’t drink coffee but I’m always on the lookout for some good teeth whitening products! This sounds really good! xx
Beaulife.org
We were quite pleased with the results for sure! Thanks for reading!
I’ve just bought a teeth whitening kit. WHITE TEETH FOR LIFE xx
The definitely help on the confidence front!
They sound great! i drink quite a lot of coffee and have done for a long time, so my teeth aren’t as pearly as I’d like them to be. I could definitely do with something like this x
Sophie
http://www.glowsteady.co.uk
I know the feeling!
Way to go!! Love hearing about any self maintenance hints!! Just started some whitening toothpaste so this is now in my radar! Thanks for sharing!! xoxo 😁
Your welcome! Good luck with the toothpaste!
My husband and I are following a keto based lifestyle as well 👏🏻 Great information on the whitening trays!
Thank you! Good luck on the Keto Journey!
I need this too. I drink a lot of coffee and tea so my teeth are yellowish now.
I feel your pain! Coffee is life though haha
I’ve always been so self conscious about my teeth so this sounds like a perfect kit for me! I’ve tried some whitening toothpastes in the past that have been moderately good but nothing that has been exceptional. Fingers crossed for the giveaway! 🙂
Alice Xx
Good luck!
Wow sounds great!
Brianna | http://briannamarielifestyle.com/
We were quite pleased with it!
Thank you for your honest review! It looks like it did a great job at whitening your teeth. I use the strips from time to time.
My brother has used the strips before but I never have. These trays worked really great though!
I this it’s so sweet your husband helps you out! My fiancé is also super helpful and will always help with photos and such. We’re lucky to have such wonderful partners! 🙂 Did you find your teeth sensitive at all after the whitening?
He says there was minimal sensitivity for him – mostly on the day we did back to back treatments as we forgot one night (whoops!) but it was pretty mild. We stuck to the lower end of the time limit for the most part though and I think that helped! He’s pretty good about taking pics fo me when I need him too, it’s definitely nice to have the support!