Whitening our Choppers

Since neither of us lost the 30 pounds we would have liked to before the ‘big day’, we are now doing everything else we can to take the focus off our plump bodies.

First stop – BriteSmile.

They promise an hour and a half of your life for a whiter, healthier looking smile. So of course, I signed up us. If you have beautiful pearly whites beaming in the Mexican sunshine, no one is going to be looking at your double chin, right?

Chris and I head down to their Union Square ‘lab’, don some funky orange glasses, settle into a really comfortable high-tech looking chair, turn on Battlestar Gallactica, slather on some bleaching gel, and chill out for a while. Note: more photos are available on Flickr.

It’s a pretty simple process really, done in three 20-minute sessions. Apply gel. Apply light. Apply gel. Apply light. Apply gel. Apply light. Rinse. Smile widely at everyone you pass on the street.

The only thing I didn’t like about the process was the requirement to eat nothing but white foods for 24 hours afterwards to ensure your teeth have time to ‘recover’ (they dehydrate the teeth to get the whitening gel inside, so anything you eat within the first 24 hours could badly stain your choppers). As we were walking through Safeway, I quickly realized how much I enjoy food with color. Steak. Spinach. Red wine. But it was only for 24 hours so we managed to find a way to suck it up and be good. Oh the sacrifices we have to make to be beautiful. :()

We are now a couple of days later and I am not sure I see a real big difference, but my teeth feel whiter (if that makes sense).   I do find myself smiling a bit more than I did before so I guess it made sense to spend the money…

Now remember -no looking at my bingo wings…focus on my teeth.