How to whiten teeth with baking soda?
If you’re looking for a money-saving way that helps you to whiten your teeth, that’s baking soda or sodium bicarbonate. Use sodium bicarbonate or baking soda to see the magic! It gives instant results, but for the best result, use for a couple of times per week. But some people wonder how to whiten teeth with baking soda? This post is a complete guide for them.
Suppose you are going to your prom night or an office meeting or on a date and see before a mirror; your smile isn’t complementing you as your teeth are not white. There is no time to go to the dentist or medical store to bring a whitening kit. Just grab your toothbrush, have some toothpaste or water, and coat it with some baking soda. Then brush your teeth. You will be amazed by the result. The stains on your teeth will be gone.
What is Baking Soda?
Before knowing about how to whiten teeth with baking soda, let us be aware of Baking Soda. Baking soda is known mainly as a leavening agent; the baking soda can be used for a lot more than making bread rise. Baking soda is known as a cooking ingredient. Besides that, it contains around 30% of bicarbonate and various acidic ingredients activated by water addition.
Baking soda is alkaline. This acid used in baking powder avoids a metallic taste when the chemical change during baking creates sodium carbonate. That helps to risen bread, cakes, and many more baked dishes. Baking soda is a white solid crystalline but sometimes appears as a fine white powder. It has a slightly salty and alkaline taste resembling that of washing soda.
Does Baking Soda work for teeth whitening?
Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is a fine white powder used in almost innumerable household works. It will remove the stains from the surface of our teeth. There has never been any scientific study that even hints that baking soda may whiten your teeth. As it will remove stains from our teeth surface instantly, our teeth will look cleaner than before as well whiter. So, the claim of whitening teeth is not really valid, but as it will clean the surface, teeth will look whiter.
Is Baking Soda extremely abrasive?
So many people assume that Baking soda is highly abrasive. The reason is the particles are significant and which has large and sharp edges. Also, when it is touched, it will feel gritty. So, people assume it is highly abrasive. But that’s not true.
If you see baking soda particles through a microscope, you will notice they have edges and corners. Compering with toothpaste, it has silica particles which are the most common abrasive. You will notice how rounded and smooth the silica particles are. Whereas you will realize the baking soda particles are much larger than silica particles. As we can say, baking soda particles are approximately 15 times larger than silica particles in the toothpaste.
So, the difference is silica particles are much harder than baking soda. However, if you rub these two objectives, the more complex object will give zero damage. In contrast, the softer one will be damaged because the harder one will damage the softer one.
Does baking soda work as a toothpaste?
Yes, baking soda works as toothpaste. You can brush your teeth with baking soda and a longer time if you’re using straight baking soda mixed to a paste with just water. That will help physicians to remove bacteria and stains. On the other hand, baking soda is inexpensive. Using baking soda as toothpaste, you will be safe from the chemical extract and artificial colors present in commercial toothpaste.
If you check your toothpaste ingredients, you probably get that your paste contains sodium bicarbonate, which is baking soda. According to many dental associations, maximum toothpaste claims to whitening teeth must contain sodium bicarbonate because it is an excellent source of whitening teeth, which is mainly deep cleansing. So, instead of buying toothpaste containing baking soda, some people mix a paste of baking soda and water and brush with it to clean their pearly whites.
Moreover, sometimes commercial toothpaste claims that baking soda contains more abrasives, which may hamper your teeth surface, tooth enamel, dentin, and so on. While the stain will become softer using water & baking soda more than toothpaste. Even better, baking soda is less abrasive than many alternatives and similar in hardness to your teeth’s dentin. So, “baking soda in harmful as toothpaste”- is wrong. It is safe to use as toothpaste.
But there are some other additional features in toothpaste that are not present in baking soda paste. There are many kinds of toothpaste that contains fluoride, and that prevents dental cavities. Whereas using baking soda alone may not give you the cavity protection you need. Continuing with that, baking soda alone may not give you the cavity protection you need.
How to whiten teeth with Baking Soda along with cleaning your teeth?
As we have mentioned before, baking soda can clean your teeth and whiten your teeth. Let’s see the process of using baking soda to whiten teeth.
Baking soda with water is the easiest method to help whiten your teeth. The things you need:
- Toothbrush
- Water
- A tablespoon
- A bowl to mix.
Process:
- Grab a small bowl.
- Take one tablespoon baking soda and one tablespoon (roughly equal part of both components).
- Mix them and make a thick paste.
- Apply on your teeth with a toothbrush or finger.
- For the best outcome, apply the thick paste and brush for 2 minutes with a soft-bristled toothbrush.
- Coat all your teeth.
- Use circular motions and brush gently all around your mouth, and don’t leave any tooth.
- Don’t scrub too hard or forcefully; that may cause harm to your gum.
- After two minutes, rinse your mouth gently using water or mouthwash.
Alternative: As baking soda with water is a fluoride-free option, you can also use toothpaste instead of water. It will add extra benefit to your teeth.
You can also add lemon instead of water. Lemon contains citric acid, which is an effective bleaching agent. But don’t use that regularly because backing powder and lemon make acidic reactions that might not be suitable for your teeth surface regularly.
Advantages:
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Reduces bacteria and germs:
Due to obvious reasons, our mouth contains unanimous harmful bacteria. Some of them don’t go by general toothpaste. So they need more acidic action to be removed. Hence, baking soda does that effective action to remove those harmful bacteria so far. The pH in your mouth increases while you rinse your mouth. In conclusion, using baking soda as toothpaste may make it challenging for cavity-causing bacteria to increase in your mouth.
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Teeth Whitening:
Being a chemical compound, baking powder or sodium bicarbonate is white, crystalline and appears as a fine powder. Having a salty and alkaline taste, baking powder is made of sodium and bicarbonate ions. The alkalinity and abrasiveness help to remove stains due to food, beverage, smoking, betel leaf, and some medicine and so on. The mild abrasiveness removes stains along with plaque on the tooth surface. So the teeth look whiter than before.
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Fluoride-free option:
excessive fluoride is toxic for teeth. Most importantly, it is very harmful to under six years old children. But In that concern, fluoride toxicity is rare. The risk is only if the consumed fluoride is in a large amount. It may cause pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and many more internal problems. That’s why many people prefer baking soda as toothpaste as a fluoride-free option.
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Inexpensive:
Baking soda is an inexpensive option. It is very affordable and easy to get. In the thousands of toothpaste, baking soda is a safe option that is an inexpensive and fluoride-free option.
Disadvantages:
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Less Dramatic Whitening:
The Internet is loaded with lots of misleading information that baking soda gives dramatic pearl white teeth in a snap. But that’s not true. Baking powder or sodium bicarbonate helps to remove stains by creating an acidic reaction. That cleans teeth and looks whiter than before instantly. But it’s not like dramatic whitening.
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Unpleasant taste:
Baking soda is very good at cleaning teeth, but it has a very unpleasant taste. The sand-like feeling in the mouth is no one’s favourite sensation, of course. If you want something to add flavour, then add paper mint oil. It will add extra texture and flavour.
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Lack of fluoride:
Baking soda doesn’t contain fluoride for apparent reasons. So Baking soda as toothpaste may not give you protection from the cavity at some point.
If you were in doubt about how to whiten teeth with baking soda, I think now you are pretty sure about it. Baking Soda is affordable and accessible to get teeth cleaner that whitens teeth so far. Its sandy texture, mild abrasiveness, pH balance make it a good choice for people. But excessive use of anything is harmful. So excessive use of baking soda can harm your tooth enamel. Apart from that, Baking soda is a great medium that whitens your teeth and cleans them gently.
