One of the biggest concerns during teeth bleaching is how white one should go. It is difficult to objectively look at yourself in the mirror and decide what your ideal level of whiteness should be. You don't want your teeth too yellow, and you don't want your teeth too white. Generally speaking, males look better with a color that isn’t an “in your face” bleach white shade, while women can pull off a whiter shade. Gender, Age, Skin Tone, and Hair Color are all factors you should take into consideration. Regis Philbin is a classic example of someone who has teeth that are too white for his demographic.

There are billions of variations when it comes to facial features. The purpose of the Teeth Whitening Simulator is to give you an estimation of how teeth color affects smile aesthetics for different demographics. We try to provide the closest match based on your selection.

These shade values derive from the Vitapan Shade Guide. This is a universally accepted guide, systematically arranged from light to dark, that all dentists refer to when communicating shade color. It has been used in dentistry for over 40 years. Most recently, the makers of this guide (Vitapan) have come out with a 3D guide, but very few dentists have adopted it thus far. The values 010-040 are generally only attainable through bleaching.

When we look at others our mind has a general expectation as to what we think we will see. That is, there is a spectrum of tooth coloration that defines the range of what we construe as being normal and natural. (The Vitapan shade guide is used to quantify where in the range of normal a person's tooth coloration lies.) Some people will have teeth that are inherently lighter in shade than others. But if a person's tooth coloration falls outside of the range of what we consider normal, say too white, then their appearance takes on an unnatural, sometimes even freakish, look.

This range of color that we interpret as appearing natural will vary from individual to individual. Factors such as skin tone and hair color can have an influence. Shades that appear natural will also change for a person with each passing decade. Since it is characteristic that a person's teeth will darken with time, clearly a 65 year old would be expected to display a different tooth coloration than a teenager. Think how ridiculous a pop idol's smile would look on an elderly head of state (ala Joe Biden).

Now, look around at those who surround you. What do you see? (Actually the first thing that we see is that no one around us looks anything like the model on the whitening product's box. That alone should be a tip off that often the standards that are put in front of us as being the ideal should probably instead be categorized as extremes. What is the range of whiteness you notice with other people's teeth?

It would be our opinion that when aspiring to a certain tooth shade that it's fine to aim for a coloration that lies at the lighter end of the "normal" range rather than the darker. But it's necessary to keep your goals realistic. And these more "realistic" degrees of whiteness will be the ones that over-the-counter and in-office products & procedures are intended to help you achieve. Unrealistic degrees of whiteness are usually only attainable with veneers/crowns.