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Pro Teeth Whitening Co review: Can these charcoal strips really brighten your smile?

The DIY product promises brighter pearly whites in just two weeks

Chloë James
Thursday 05 August 2021 17:52 BST
Developed by dentists and peroxide free, your gnashers will be in good hands
Developed by dentists and peroxide free, your gnashers will be in good hands (The Independent)

It’s frustratingly easy to stain your teeth, but not so simple to reverse the damage. For anyone who wants to avoid the time and expense of professional teeth whitening, the internet recommends endless at-home alternatives, ranging from the weird to the wonderful.

Anything containing charcoal sounds like it should fall into the former category. However, many claim that thanks to the mild abrasiveness of activated charcoal, it can actually lift surface stains from your teeth.

While it may not pack the same punch as the high percentage of hydrogen peroxide only dentists can provide, products with this ingredient can be a real game-changer for anyone looking to reverse minor staining.

This is exactly what we wanted to achieve with the Pro Teeth Whitening Co.’s premium dental whitening strips. Promising quick and easy results, these were developed by dentists, so we felt comfortable putting our teeth in their hands.

How we tested

Putting aside our fears of charcoal leaving our teeth more discoloured than before, we worked our way through all 14 days worth of strips to see if our smile was dull or dazzling by the fortnight’s end.

Read more:

Pro Teeth Whitening Co. premium dental whitening strips

Pro Teeth Whitening Co. premium dental whitening strips review  indybest.jpg

Buy now £12.99, Amazon.co.uk

  • Steps: Apply once daily for 30 mins
  • Duration: 14 days
  • Rating: 8/10

Charcoal sounds and looks like it should blacken your teeth, not whiten them. These strips are the same. They look dark when you first get them out of the box, and you do feel some sense of dread when you first apply them to your teeth.

It took us a long time to adjust to the sensation of wearing dental strips. It’s incomparable to any other step of your usual oral hygiene routine and is easy to mess it up at first. Be sure to apply them to dry teeth, as excessive saliva will reduce adhesiveness. We were a seasoned pro by day five when the 30 minutes started to fly by.

Read more: We tested the Philips Sonicare 5100 toothbrush

However, we did also find that you never really get used to the sensation of removing the strips. It leaves behind a jelly-like residue, which doesn’t go away without some thorough scrubbing. Once it’s gone, however, you soon start seeing results. We saw improvement in some staining on our front teeth from the very first day. This was enough to commit us to Pro Teeth Whitening Co. for the long haul. This kind of rapid evidence is rare for most beauty products, never mind teeth whitening formulas, which makes this product’s results all the more impressive.

Not only did our teeth look healthier, but they felt better too. We found ourselves compulsively running over them with our tongue as they felt so smooth, and the results got better with each passing day. The change was so dramatic that we fully expected it to peter off after a week or so, but teeth continued to glow brighter than before until the very end of our 14-day treatment.

This is where we started to feel slightly disappointed. After a fortnight of use, our teeth were glowing more than ever. But after about a week free of the strips we started to see some staining creeping back in. This is inevitable with at-home products as they’re only really targeting surface-level discolouration, and can’t target anything deeper than that without professional intervention. We’d just never seen our teeth regress quite so quickly (although it was nothing a quick top-up every week or so couldn’t fix).

Read more: 9 best kids’ toothbrushes they’ll want to use

As with any teeth whitening treatment, we were equally considered about its impact on our dental health. Although we found comfort from the get-go in the fact dentists were involved in the development, and that it’s free of peroxide, we still feared it could aggravate sensitivity. Thankfully this wasn’t the case, and our teeth were left no worse off than before.

The verdict: Pro Teeth Whitening Co. premium dental whitening strips

We’ve tried a lot of whitening products and no DIY option has ever had such rapid results. All it took was 30 minutes of the mildest discomfort ever to get a smoother and brighter smile. We love how straightforward the directions are, and couldn’t have asked for a quicker – or more cost-effective – way to minimise staining from certain food and drink.

There is a downside. While we never expected results this dramatic to last forever, we didn’t think it would take just one week after our final strip to begin regressing. However, this is easy to prevent with the occasional top-up, and shouldn’t put you off investing in a solid refresh for your grin.

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For more brightening products to use at home, check out our edit of the best teeth whitening kits

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