Eli5 why do teeth yellow after whitening

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I’ve had my teeth whitened 6 months ago which turned them completely white, however they begun turning yellow and I’m wondering what causes this and how can I avoid it

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5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Teeth are actually naturally an off-white color. Even the cleanest of teeth, with zero plaque or damage (cavities, gingivitis, etc) are a bit of a dull cream-yellow. That’s the pulp and inner tissue of your tooth, just a bit visible through the enamel! Pretty neat, right?

I’m not entirely sure how teeth whitening is done these days, but I assume it bleaches the surfaces or coats them in a white surface to cover the visible pulp. Overdoing it can damage and hurt your teeth, because that soft eggshell color is meant to be there.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Anything you might drink can cause discoloration. Coffee, tea, cola, etc. Do you ingest anything with dyes? A lot of things have dyes in them. Maybe thats causing your discoloration.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If your drink tea or coffee it’s more important to brush BEFORE drinking. Counter intuitive I know but the fluoride protects from acid and brushing after drinking acidic things weakens your enamel and brushing is more rough on your teeth afterwards.

Anonymous 0 Comments

My dental hygienist recommended to use a hydrogen peroxide mouthwash to help prevent yellowing and staining, so far it’s helped me but that’s just my personal experience

Anonymous 0 Comments

So the teeth are made of multiple layers, the yellow layer of a tooth is made of a material called deberían, this actually is the color you’re seeing and it’s fairly sensitive to temperature too. The white layer is known as enamel and it’s 100% dead and mineral, when you get your teeth whitened they just stripped off a layer of enamel to expose some new enamel underneath it, this is basically always down with hydrogen peroxide or any other abrasive, but teeth unless constantly whitened will always turn slightly yellow.
To prevent this really all you can do is make sure to clean and brush and floss your teeth regularly, and use products that contain fluoride. Fluoride forms a coating around your enamel and prevents bacteria from growing and eating away at your teeth. Other than that you can consume staining drinks with straws to lessen the contact with your teeth, and drink water throughout the day to make sure food particles don’t stay in contact with teeth for as long

One thing to note, whitening too often, while you may find it looks good can increase Tooth sensitivity, granted no dentist would let that happen and most toothpaste is too weak to cause this, but stripping material can lead to tooth sensitivity.