A Toast to Teeth Whitening: 5 Alcoholic Drinks to Avoid After Teeth Whitening
When you attend a special event, such as a wedding, birthday party or corporate Christmas party, you naturally want to look your best. Professional teeth whitening at a cosmetic dentistry office can have a great impact on your appearance. At a time when it is almost impossible to avoid the inevitable post-party photographs on Facebook, a beautiful, confident smile is a necessity.
However, if you, like many people, whiten your teeth in the days leading up to a social event, you'll need to avoid certain alcoholic beverages for the next 48 hours. That means you may have to avoid partaking of your preferred beverage in favour of something else.
Dark Beverages
For the first 24-48 hours after bleaching, teeth are dehydrated. The bleaching process saps both water and mineral content from teeth. As a result, newly whitened teeth are more porous than usual, and thus more susceptible to staining by dark foods and beverages.
It usually takes 24-48 hours for the saliva to rehydrate and remineralize teeth. This means that you should avoid drinking alcoholic drinks like red wine, dark beer or rum. Instead, go for something clear like vodka or gin.
Drinks With Dark Mixers
Again, for the same reason, you won't be able to cheat by adding dark mixers like cranberry juice or cola to an alcoholic drink. If you do, the results of your whitening treatment will fade noticeably.
Alcoholic Beverages With Fruit
Fruit is bad for newly whitened teeth in two ways. Firstly, many of the fruits used to make alcoholic cocktails, such as grapes, oranges, lemons, etc., are acidic. When your teeth are recovering from whitening and are still porous, an acidic drink will cause you significant pain.
Moreover, acidity lowers your saliva's pH level. If the pH of your saliva drops below 5.5, the enamel of your teeth will soften and become more porous. Just think, if your teeth are already dehydrated and porous, do you really want to risk making them even more so?
Acidic Alcoholic Drinks
As with alcoholic drinks that contain fruit, acidic alcoholic drinks like white wine, beer and liquors will all cause you pain. Perhaps more importantly, they will all make your teeth more porous, making it easier for staining molecules to undo your whitening treatment.
Cold Drinks
Finally, dehydrated teeth that are more porous than usual should not be exposed to ice-cold drinks. At least, not unless you don't mind bearing the electric zap that comes after each mouthful!
You could avoid this need to be so careful by whitening your teeth a week before a party. This will give your teeth time to rehydrate. You'll be able to flash your pearly whites for the camera and drink your preferred alcoholic beverages, too.
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