Activated Charcoal Safe To Whiten Teeth At Home?

Today, I want to talk about or revisit a topic about activated charcoal.

Hello, I’m Dr. Grey Kantor here in San Rafael, California, with Kantor Dental Group, Aesthetic Dentistry and Implantology.

That topic you’ve seen on your Facebook feed about saying, “Hey! You can whiten your teeth much cheaper than the dentist as well as clean your teeth and make them look brighter”. These are, I think, appropriate claims. The activated charcoal will make your teeth look whiter, especially you haven’t seen your dentist a while and get them get your teeth cleaned.

Really, what that activated charcoal is doing is cleaning off the surface stains on your teeth. So, the surface stains on your teeth we clean off when you just come in for your dental cleaning. You’ll notice your teeth do look whiter just after a simple dental cleaning. We use an abrasive paste on your teeth. We use a medium abrasive here in our office. But the activated charcoal is generally uncontrolled about how abrasive it is. It can be very abrasive, slightly abrasive. You don’t know what you’re getting, and they don’t have to report it.

So, you’re using a sandpaper basically or polish on your teeth that removes the surface stains. Is this bad? I think use sparingly it’s not bad, right? If you use it once every six months, maybe even every three months. That’s OK. It’s when you use it daily, weekly, that’s a bit too much. And if you have any sort of acid, like if you eat orange juice or drink orange juice, eat oranges or something with acid in it. You’re going to wear away your enamel and your teeth will eventually start looking more and more yellow as the enamel wears away.

So, something to consider. But as a follow up to my previous video, I think it’s important to note that I don’t think it’s necessarily bad if used sparingly.

If you have any interests or comments about activated charcoal, definitely bring it up in the conversation below. I’d love to hear about it. I’m Dr. Grey Kantor here with Kantor Dental Group in San Rafael, California. Please subscribe!