Make Your Beauty Treatment Last

Maintaining a White Smile

Once the dentist gets your teeth as white as they can be, help keep them bright by removing stains before they set.

• Brushing teeth or chewing sugarless gum after meals and snacking on crunchy fruits and vegetables (like apples and celery) can help, says Mal Braverman, a dentist in New York City. Both increase saliva production to clean teeth.
• Carry a touch-up whitening product with peroxide and brush it onto teeth after drinking coffee or wine or eating berries. Rule of thumb: if it stains your countertops, it will stain your teeth.
• Once a week, brush with this at-home treatment: Add just enough hydrogen peroxide to a little baking soda to form a paste to polish away discoloration, suggest Marc Lowenberg, a New York City cosmetic dentist. Or use a store-bought deep-cleaning toothpaste with silicas instead.

Maintenance Tools

1. Deep-cleaning toothpaste.
Crest Weekly Clean Intensive Cleaning Paste, $4 at drugstores.
 
2. DIY Whitening Treatment.
A mixture of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.
 
3. Portable whitener.
Go Smile Flashlites, $10 for seven, gosmile.com.