- I am wondering if you guys ever considered
whitening your teeth at home
using charcoal toothpaste or maybe baking soda.
If you have or wonder how to use them,
then this video is for you.
(upbeat music)
Oh, it's recording.
Hi, hello.
Welcome and welcome back to my channel.
I am Dr. Teresa.
It's so nice to have you guys here.
(speaking Chinese: This video will be recorded in English but I will have Chinese subtitle.)
(speaking Chinese: but I will have Chinese subtitle)
(speaking Chinese: Hope you will enjoy this video)
All right, without further ado,
let's get right into it.
Today, we're going to look at Linda Chung's
most recent upload on her YouTube channel.
In her video, she shared her at-home
teeth whitening secrets with her audience.
I want you to watch this video with you
to see what we can learn from her and at the same time,
to share my knowledge in teeth whitening.
In case you don't know who Linda Chung is,
Linda Chung Zhong Jiaxin,
she's an actress, songwriter and a singer from Hong Kong.
She is originally from Vancouver.
She was born and raised in Vancouver
so we were kind of homies like close.
So I gotta support her, regardless.
(buzzing sound)
- Okay, well first, I think the toothbrush
might be a little bit too big for her.
The brush head looks too large.
When you buy a toothbrush,
make sure that the toothbrush head
is as long as the length of two teeth combined.
You don't want to go longer than that,
or else the toothbrush adaptation to your teeth
wouldn't be so ideal.
I have so much to say about these ingredients.
Okay, I'm just gonna get the information out of the way
so you're informed, continuing watching this video.
Charcoal toothpaste or charcoal something
has been such a big hype in the teeth whitening industry.
What is exactly activated charcoal though?
Is it same as the charcoal you see on barbecue grill?
Unfortunately, it's pretty much the same but worse.
Activated charcoal was produced
at a much higher temperature
so there are more surface areas per particles
to bind to chemicals, toxins or ions.
It's great in water filtering system
that we can filter out all the toxic chemicals
that we don't want.
It's also great in a hospital where a doctor will use it
on people who overdose on toxins.
However, our mouth, we don't have a lot
of these harmful toxins or chemicals.
What we have is stain and bacteria, which is plaque
which can be removed effectively
just by using an electric toothbrush and proper flossing.
So the chemical binding property of charcoal
is actually quite useless when it comes to your teeth.
How charcoal being a great ingredient in teeth whitening
is the fact that they are super abrasive.
So you can think of it as a very hardcore,
intense exfoliator for your teeth
but there might be a problem
which we will talk about later in the video.
Baking soda on the other hand is much more mild
and much more safe to use
but baking soda is actually a lot more mild
than many of whitening toothpastes
or regular toothpastes you see in the market
so I don't really know how effective it is
for baking soda to remove stain.
But if you're wearing braces,
I will advise you to stay away from baking soda
because baking soda can break away the glue
on your brackets.
- Oh, it's a pill.
By the way, charcoal, if you have diarrhea.
A lot of people will take charcoal to treat diarrhea
because charcoal is known for its ability
to bind and expel toxins from your stomach.
You can take it too, holy smokes,
(beep sound)
- She's so cute.
- Okay, there you go.
- She's so pretty.
- Is that the right amount of toothpaste to use?
On daily basis, you only need about pea size of toothpaste,
you don't need that much toothpaste but for her,
she wants to use toothpaste
as a medium to carry charcoal powder
so it makes sense for her to use that much.
- Oh, that's a big mess.
♪ Brush your teeth ♪
- Oh my God, that's very hard.
Wait, hold on, hold up, hold up.
Please don't brush your teeth so hard.
Oh my gosh,
especially you're using such abrasive material
and brushing so hard at the same time,
you're to strip away your enamel.
Over time, what will happen is your enamel
will get thinner and thinner
and the underlying dentin,
which is the second layer of your tooth will be exposed.
Dentin is a lot more yellow than your enamel
and a lot more sensitive and prone to damage.
So that is an irreversible damage caused on your teeth.
So please, I will make a video later
on how to properly brush your teeth.
But when you brush your teeth,
you want to brush in a gentle, circular motion
and two teeth at a time
and gently brush from the gum line towards the teeth.
The rule of thumb is you should try to brush your skin.
If your skin is hurting, then you're brushing too hard.
I know our teeth feels like as hard as brick, but no,
our teeth are still living structure,
it's part of your body so please take care of your teeth
like how you take care of your skin,
with gentle love and care.
♪ Your teeth when the day goes down ♪
- [Male Voice] A few minutes later.
♪ Brush brush brush ♪
- And that's actually a lot of people's mistake,
when they brush their teeth,
they go like this way.
♪ Brush you teeth in the morning and night ♪
(water burbles)
- Charcoal is always a mess.
Because charcoal actually doesn't taste good at all,
I don't know why it's such a big hype.
It's messy, it tastes bad and it's bad for your teeth.
- After you use charcoal product,
your teeth will feel squeaky clean and feels whiter,
it's because it's very effective
at removing these external stains,
from tea, from food and coffee.
So she's absolutely right.
(camera shutters) She is so gorgeous, isn't she?
- She knows, she knows she was brushing too hard.
Okay, good.
- So she's correct here.
Charcoal, as I mentioned before,
charcoal does have that property of dragging chemicals out,
binding chemicals and removing them
but that's not how they whiten your teeth.
Okay, it's a big misconception in public right now.
- Removing these stains don't actually whiten your teeth,
they just make your teeth return to its original color.
The only ingredients that can whiten your teeth
is hydrogen peroxide.
- That's why in the past, in the 90s,
some toothpaste actually contained sand
because they're so abrasive,
they act like exfoliator and then more studies came out
to show that our enamel, it's not as tough as you think
and you can easily damage it
if you use very abrasive particles.
- So it's good, at least she's not using it
every day for a long time.
Using it, she said three days in a row and once a month,
it might be okay, it depends on individuals
but I just feel like why risk it?
Because using electric toothbrush
and a regular toothpaste are more than enough
to keep the stain away.
Unless if you're smokers, you collect a lot of stain
but if you're just like you and me,
occasionally drink a little bit of coffee, tea
or eat curry, sometime these colored food,
just drink with straw whenever you can
and rinse with water after you consume them.
That will keep your stain at a minimum,
unless you have a lot of fillings on your teeth
or if your teeth have these micro cracks
that can collect and absorb stains more easily.
In that case, you might need to visit your dentist
to see if we can smooth out the fillings for you
or clean your teeth with the ultrasonics.
- She's so sweet.
Thank you so much for sharing your way to help other people.
And there are actually a lot of YouTubers,
Instagrammers out there that are advocating for charcoal use
or these natural remedies
but from a dentist point of view,
I still want to strongly advise to kinda stay away
from these natural products
because they're not regulated by dental board,
you don't know how abrasive they are.
And once you notice that your teeth
are becoming more yellow or sensitive, it is irreversible.
It's painful and it's going to be very expensive
so just be careful.
A lot of people want to be healthier
and they are over-focused on the word natural
but natural doesn't necessarily mean better
or safer than unnatural or synthetic material.
Everything is made of chemicals.
We are made of carbons.
Humans are made of carbons.
So stuffs that are occurred naturally,
it can just mean it's naturally bad for you.
You know what I mean.
So be careful with what you get into
when you look at these natural remedies.
I had a patient, she is very healthy
and really big on using natural products.
She only uses salt and baking powder
or baking soda to brush her teeth.
And unfortunately, she came to see me
with sensitivity in her teeth.
She thought maybe her gums are receding.
I took a look.
Her mouth are full of decay, cavities
because she's not using toothpaste with fluoride in it.
Salt with manual toothbrush,
it's like scraping your skin with rocks.
So unfortunately, her enamel has been all stripped away.
Her teeth are yellow, are sensitive now.
It was very unfortunate
so I really don't want that to happen to you.
Okay, I also do not want to scare you away.
I talked a lot about abrasiveness.
How do we even measure abrasiveness in products
and which product is safe to use then?
how abrasive can we go to effectively remove stain
but at the same time, maintaining health of your teeth?
Dental products, especially toothpaste,
their abrasiveness is measured in the unit of RDA,
stands for relative dentin abrasion
and as recommended by Canadian Dental Association
or American Dental Association,
anything with RDA less than 250,
it's safe to use every day for a lifetime use.
You can find the chart online.
It's got different brands.
Most of the toothpaste like Colgate, Sensodyne,
they are all under 250.
So when you buy your toothpaste,
you can look for a seal verified by ADA
or Canadian Dental Association
to be sure that it is safe to use.
Some of the charcoal toothpaste is actually less than 250.
Not all charcoals are made the same.
Some charcoal is formulated in a different way
that the RDA can be lower and more acceptable.
However, I just feel like, why risk it?
It doesn't taste good, it makes a mess
and if it's less than 250 RDA,
it's not doing more than the regular toothpaste.
So I personally would not recommend
long-term use of charcoal,
especially a lot of these charcoal products are unregulated.
Proper oral care requires a combination of proper techniques
and the right products, which is what my channel's about.
I want to teach you how you can safely and effectively
take care of your teeth at home
so you don't have to visit us so often.
Nobody likes going to the dentist, I mean, including myself.
It's expensive and not the most comfortable thing, I get it.
For all the fans of Linda's out there,
I don't mean anything disrespectful or criticizing today.
In fact, I'm so thankful that she made this video
so I can share my two cents.
Most importantly, thank you guys
for watching this video until now.
I hope you all enjoyed the video.
I appreciate you so, so much.
If you have any question or you have any topic
that you would like me to talk about,
please leave a comment below,
I would love chatting with you guys down there.
I will see you soon in my next video, bye.
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