We tried it: Zoom Teeth Whitening

A big, blinding white smile, what’s not to like? I know, for one, that I’ve always dreamt of brightening up my grin. While mine isn’t to bad to start with, there’s something about that Hollywood smile that just seems to light up peoples faces.

So, when I was offered the chance to try out Zoom Teeth Whitening I jumped at the opportunity.

After spending days hunched over online reviews, studying the process I entered the dental surgery confident about the result, but extremely nervous about the pain I was about to endure.

I was greeted by the super friendly dentist, Luke Cronin at Quality Dental. He talked me through the procedure and addressed my fears, reassuring me that the pain *hopefully* wouldn’t be too bad. So, I apprehensively took my seat in the dental chair…

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What it is: Zoom is an in-dentist teeth whitening process that uses light activated technology for better teeth whitening results. It's been clinically proven to whiten teeth up to 8 shades in 45 minutes

Cost: $700-$900

What I expected: Of course, going into a high-end teeth whitening appointment with a system that's so reputable, I had very high expectations. I'd pitcured walking out of the clinic with a blinding white Hollywood-esque smile.

What it’s actually like: I placed a mouth-guard like device in my mouth to keep it open for the process. After that was in, Dr Cronin placed a protective gel on my gums before painting the Hydrogen Peroxide onto my teeth.

Once that was done I was left by myself to settle in with a LED light attached to my mouth guard while I caught up on some Entourage and relaxed.

Fast forward three treatments and an hour later (each treatment was 15 minutes) it was time for me to take out the mouth guard and see the results.

How does it feel: Before the treatment, Dr Cronin assured me that if there was sensitivity – which is more common for people who grind their teeth in their sleep which unfortunately includes me – it would come in the third session of the whitening. My first two sessions were completely fine, I didn’t feel any pain whatsoever. At the very end of my third session I felt a tiny flicker of pain in a bottom tooth, which disappeared in a few seconds. That was it! I didn’t experience any other pain during the process.

A few hours after the process I felt a dull aching pain creeping up. The only way to describe it really is a feeling like freezing cold air is going through your teeth. That dull ache hung around until I went to bed that night, but I popped a few panadols and used the teeth sensitivity gel the dentist had given me to manage it. Once I woke up the next morning the pain was completely gone and my smile was as bright as ever.

Limitations: After my extensive research online, I was all set to stock up on a post teeth-whitening diet of chicken, white rice and potatoes. But as they say, you shouldn’t trust Google, and Dr Cronin assured me I wouldn’t need to stick to a white-food only diet for the following 48 hours.

He explained that the first two hours are the most vital as the teeth are very dehydrated and porous, so he advised to stay away from any foods that could stain your teeth in that time. He explained it as; if it could stain your clothing, it could stain your teeth. Which means red wine, coffee and berries were out of the equation.

After that he said while it’s advised to stay away from teeth staining foods for 48 hours, as long as you stick by the two-hour rule, it won’t really affect the colour of your enamel much. So food wise, there really wasn’t much limitation.

Pain wise, I wouldn’t recommend a super social occasion in the following hours from teeth whitening. I found the dull ache in my teeth made me want to curl up and get an early night and sleep the pain off. And while it wasn’t exactly enjoyable, it only lasted for a few hours and was totally worth it for the smile I have now.

The result: When following my treatment, the moment of truth had come for me to look in the mirror, I was feeling very nervous. Dr Cronin explained to me, each person has a different level of ‘maximum whiteness’ and no matter how much teeth whitening is used, the colour won’t lift any whiter than that. Some people are lucky and their teeth have the ability to go super white, while others don’t. I’d of course, convinced myself that I was going to be in the latter category.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. As I looked in the mirror I was so impressed with how my smile looked so much brighter and a lot whiter. While my teeth weren’t too bad to begin with, the light stains had significantly been lifted and I couldn’t get over how bright my smile was.

Dr Cronin said that my teeth had lifted 6 shades (they lift to a maximum of 8). While they’re significantly whiter, I would say that they look super clean and like I have natural-white teeth, compared to a blinding white fake, ‘Hollywood’ style smile.

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