Pearly Whites

[LabRat]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

the problem with the strips is that they only do the surface of your teeth. teeth are translucent. and they have ridges and bumps and stuff.

the mouth piece solution is cheaper, and once you have the molds, you can always re-do it at home after the stains come back.

This is also why I went with the Docs system. I can buy the SAME gel I'm using now separately for touchups down the road, as long as my kid doesn't destroy my molds

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Catwoman

Beethoven was deaf, plumbers houses leak, Hitler was a vegetarian, and most marketers can't market themselves.

If my advice is wrong then judge it to be wrong on it's own merits, not because it's me saying it.

you're missing the point.

the point labrat was trying to make was that she wants to have group sex.

<strike>What I do to make me happy is my business, be it having liposuction,</strike> , <strike>doing yoga, or painting my house chartruse.</strike>

duh


oh, and also that she wasn;t looking for you to get all deep and philosophical about the motivations of why people care about their own looks. she wanted feedback about her teeth. you're derailing the thread by calling her shallow. and sounding stoned and pompous at the same time....which is tricky for most people. kudos!

[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by Catwoman

Nothing to do with feminism, same goes for men and those bloody male manicures and back waxes. I love a hairy dirty man. Oh yes, and naturally, women are braless with bad teeth and no make-up. You want FAKE.

No, clean. And with self respect comes the desire to put one's best self forward. If someone wants purty teef, I say more power to em. And although it pains me to say it, same goes for back waxes.

which reminds me of a story, which i may have shared before. I knew a guy who was a volunteer wildnerness firefighter who is the singlemost hairy specimen of humanity ever born. About 5'8", 300lbs of muscle, no neck -- you've seen the type. Well, after a forest fire a few years ago, he was one of the first ones to the makeshift shower set up in a meadow near the site. He stripped down and went to clean off, not realizing that someone (who was apparently unaware that there more people nearby) was watching him. That person called in a Bigfoot sighting. I'm not making this up. He's that hairy. [/sidetrack]

anyway. Catwoman, where do you draw the line between simply having enough pride to try to look your best and falling into this "mass media tells me to look a certain way, and I'm too spineless to resist" scenario? For me, that line is cosmetic surgery (not to repair a defect, but because 'my lips aren't poofy enough', etc.).

eek. i'm contributing to the derailing. sorry, going back on track. Anyway, these bleaching products sound iffy to me. If your teeth aren't sparkly clean to begin with, you'll just have white plaque, which is nasty. I say go the professional route -- get a full cleaning combined with the stain removal.

[wolf]

Perhaps Catwoman finds everyone other than herself, particularly Americans, shallow and venal, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will shift her. Oh so sorry we can't be as perfect and pure in our motivations as you.

[perth]

I'm gonna stop wearing deodorant. People should love me for who I am, stink and all.

I get up every morning and shower, shave, wash my face, pick out nice clothes and top it all off with just a little bit of cologne. And I'm thinking about having my teeth whitened. I do it because people do have a perception of me, and I want that preception to be "he takes care of himself". People having that perception of me makes me happy. LabRat, I suspect, feels the same (but make the he a she). It may be vanity, but I enjoy witnessing that transformation every morning. I like looking at myself and thinking that I clean up nicely. Now if only I could drop that last 20 pounds. Anyone tried liposuction?!

[Catwoman]

Didn't mean to annoy you. My experience of white teeth involves not smoking and brushing twice a day. Hope this helps.

[perth]

Some of us need it. I'm not saying I couldn't have kept them white to begin with, but how am I going to enjoy my coffee unless I can follow it with a cigarette?

[Catwoman]

Originally Posted by wolf

Perhaps Catwoman finds everyone other than herself, particularly Americans, shallow and venal, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will shift her. Oh so sorry we can't be as perfect and pure in our motivations as you.

Oh no I'm quite shallow and venal. And I'm not so much perfect as.... wabi. Motivations? Not really. Actually I'm lazy, impolite and overly sure of myself. But I am right.

(Oooh isn't that annoying?)

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by wolf

Perhaps Catwoman finds everyone other than herself, particularly Americans, shallow and venal, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will shift her. Oh so sorry we can't be as perfect and pure in our motivations as you.

Oh, right Catwoman's from the UK!

I find tooth whitening foreign enough, and I'm from the nation of pearly whites!

I do use tooth-whitening toothpaste, but that's just because Crest only makes the vanilla flavored toothpaste only with whitening.

[perth]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I do use tooth-whitening toothpaste, but that's just because Crest only makes the vanilla flavored toothpaste only with whitening.

I use the same stuff. Best toothpaste ever.

[Happy Monkey]

[wolf]

I like the cinnamon stuff from the same product line. The Orange flavored stuff was, well, different to say the least.

I just got a tube of Colgate's Herbal Freshness or whatever, mostly because it was a buck cheaper than everything else on the shelf.

I've kind of adapted to it now, a couple of brushings into the tube, but it was rough going at the outset. Anybody else get an uncontrollable urge to retch when they first start brushing sometimes?

I think it's a vague attempt to compete with the Tom's of Maine market (anything with Herbal on it has got to be better for you, right?) but contains all the nice chemicals to actually whiten your teeth and freshen your breath for a brief period of time. We would probably be just as well off if we went back to chewing on a twig and using the frayed ends to scrape the gunk off our teeth.

I did do the Tom's of Maine thing for a while, Cinnamint was pretty good, but I prefer to have my mouth feeling artificially fresher longer, and for less $$.

[mrnoodle]

My grandmother, God rest her soul, was allergic to toothpaste - it made her mouth break out in a rash every time. So she used baking soda and salt to brush her teeth. I never knew her to have a cavity, either.

[wolf]

I had a stretch of about (insert length of time too embarrasing to note here, although I probably posted it somewhere else) years where I didn't go to the dentist.

At all.

I broke a tooth and HAD to go see him a couple years ago. He thought that over that time I'd just gone to another dentist.

While he had me trapped in the chair, he did an exam, xrays, and cleaning ... I had two cavities.

Two.

Since then he has made a point of scheduling me 6 months in advance ... he knows that if it's on my calendar, I'll show up.

[LabRat]

One of my best friends uses the Tom's stuff, and her teeth look great, but her breath is often quite sour. Dunno if her constant coffee drinking has anything to do with that. I feel like I have bad breath whenever I drink it (which is very rarely). I tried Tom's, and just didn't like it at all. Original Crest Reg Paste is about the only thing I can stand. Don't even like gel. Might have to try the vanilla stuff tho, in a small tube...