Professional treatment can keep your teeth pearly white for months or years. Patient results vary based on age, oral health, hygiene habits, lifestyle, and additional factors. For optimal results, follow your dentist's post-whitening care instructions.

Do-it-yourself, over-the-counter treatments may require more frequent reapplication to maintain results that last a few weeks or longer.

Immediately drinking stain-causing beverages like coffee after teeth whitening isn't advisable. Wait 24 to 48 hours after treatment before resuming your daily caffeine fix and drinking black tea, red wine, and other beverages bound to affect the look of your pearly whites. For the first week after whitening, limit consumption of these beverages to once or twice daily.

It depends on who performs teeth whitening. Taking the DIY approach introduces the risk of misusing teeth-whitening agents, which could damage dental enamel. With professional teeth whitening, you can rest easy knowing that a dentist will use bleach and other potent whitening agents safely and at the correct concentrations.

Teeth whitening typically uses high concentrations of whitening agents to effectively remove stains from enamel. Various treatment methods address intrinsic stains (those within the enamel), extrinsic stains (on the enamel surface), or both simultaneously.