Do you dream of a white smile? If your oral hygiene is good, but brushing twice a day and flossing isn’t helping you to improve your yellow teeth, it might be time to consider some other options. Teeth become yellow when they get stained at either a deep or at the surface-level – in addition to some other causes that aren’t always under our control.
Whether the yellowing on your teeth is down to staining or other factors, there are now a number of several over-the-counter products can improve the colour of your teeth, and your dentist can also offer some great advice on how to whiten you discoloured teeth.
So, what actually causes Yellow Teeth?
Although there are many obvious causes of a more yellow smile, such as drinking too much coffee and smoking too many cigarettes that leave stains on your teeth over time, a thinning tooth enamel also makes your teeth look yellow.
Your tooth enamel is the hard, white surface of your teeth. Underneath the enamel is ‘dentin’ – which is a pale brown substance. When your enamel is thick, it looks white, but thin enamel allows dentin tones to show through, making teeth look more yellow from the outside.
While enamel naturally will wear thin as people age, acids from foods and drinks such as fizzy pop and fruit speed up the thinning process by eroding its surface.
Other causes of yellow teeth include the use of antibiotics or excessive fluoride intake in young children – which will likely cause yellow-stained adult teeth later. However, antibiotics and high fluoride levels cause blotching, rather than an overall yellow tone to the teeth. Also, sadly for some, yellow teeth can sometimes just run in the family.
Whitening your Teeth?
Firstly, you need to avoid smoking, drinking too much coffee and red wine, and eating too much sugar. These will all help prevent the yellowing of your teeth, (if this is too much to bare, you could get into the habit of drinking any darker beverages through a straw.)
Try and have a drink of milk or water after you eat or drink something too acidic to help reduce the eroding effect.
Always making sure that you are brushing and flossing and that you see your dentist and dental hygienist regularly.