The end result will wipe the smile off your face! (Rapid White Original)

Member Name: Darkstar101

Product:	Rapid White Original
Date:	10/06/09 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple to use, easy to follow instructions

Disadvantages: No lasting visible results, tastes foul, quite expensive

My local NHS dental surgery recently went private and enclosed with the letter informing me of this, was a glossy cosmetic dentistry pamphlet inviting me to have my teeth whitened from only £199. I don't know anyone who wouldn't want gleaming, arctic white Hollywood style teeth, but equally, I don't know anyone who could justify spending this sort of money on cosmetic dentistry.

A few days later whilst shopping in Boots, I noticed The Rapid White Tooth Whitening System priced at £7.82 for a starter kit or £29.35 for a larger kit and with the prospect of sparkly white teeth in mind I bought the starter kit. This contained 14 applications (enough for 1 week) and the box boasted that the whitening system would make your teeth 3 shades lighter in 7 days.

Inside the box I found a 6ml bottle of accelerator liquid, a 13.6ml tube of whitening gel, a 14.1ml tube of whitening toothpaste, a duplex mouth tray, a tooth shade chart and instructions.

Before using the kit you need to identify the shade of your teeth using the chart provided for before and after comparison purposes. My teeth were shade 3 on the scale which ranges from 1 to 16 where 1 is a very pale cream colour and shade 16 is the most stained and is of a similar hue to chicken tikka masala.

The instructions then say to gently brush your teeth and prepare the mouth tray which is a small rubber gum-shield shaped device with two moulded channels. This is simple and involves squeezing some whitening gel into the upper and lower rebates.

You then have to uncap the accelerator bottle and rub the sodium chlorite liquid onto the surfaces of the teeth to be whitened. This again is straightforward because the tip of the bottle is a kind if sponge which wicks and spreads the accelerator effectively. The accelerator doesn't particularly smell or taste of anything and at this stage you cannot let you lips touch your teeth because the liquid will be wiped off.

The next stage is to insert the gel filled gum shield in your mouth where the acidic solution in the gel reacts with the sodium chlorite to break down the stains on your teeth. This is vile. The gel itself smells like the stuff you rinse your mouth out with at the dentist and has a viscosity somewhere between window frame sealant and wallpaper paste which oozes out of the sides of the mouth tray making you gag.
The filled gum shield needs to be left in for between 5-10 minutes, when it can be removed and the sticky excess gel brushed away with water.

The process is completed by cleaning your teeth with the whitening toothpaste.

The instructions state that this procedure has to be repeated morning and evening for a week to achieve the desired results. After the first application, my teeth felt very slightly cleaner but visibly no different. After the 14 applications, I would say that my teeth at best were shade level 2 on the colour scale i.e. not much different. I don't know whether this product would have more noticeable results on badly stained teeth, but if your teeth are quite clean anyway, there is little improvement.
A day or so after I had stopped using the product my teeth were exactly the same shade as they were before I started.

I would conclude therefore that, if you already have relatively clean teeth, this product is a waste of time and money.

Summary: Complete waste of time and money