How to brighten your smile

Turn the tide on stubborn stains with these at-home teeth whitening kits

Coffee, tea, red wine and other indulgences stain teeth over time, and the older you get the more the enamel on your teeth thins, leaving it prone to stains and showing the naturally yellowing dentin beneath. A number of at-home products claim to have the power to restore your pearly whites, with a slew of electric toothbrushes, such as the Philips DiamondClean Smart (£360, philips. co.uk), offering dedicated whitening modes.

Style blogs exploded last year with reviews of activated charcoal toothpastes and oil-pulling mouthwashes, offering a gentler way to draw bacteria from teeth while whitening enamel. Polished London has a best-selling Charcoal Whitening Teeth Powder (£20.99, polishedwhitening.com), while Georganics’s Activated Charcoal Oil Pulling Mouthwash (£6.99, georganics. co.uk) claims to create a “glossier smile”.

Whitening strips are also popular and simple to use – apply them to your teeth, wait the recommended amount of time, then peel them off. Try Crest’s 3D White Whitestrips (£19.99, ukcreststrips.co.uk) or Polished London’s Whitening Stripes (from £23.99).

Whitening gels will get you closer to a professional whitening treatment and often come with a mouth tray, application syringes and gels with higher levels of hydrogen peroxide. The iWhite Instant Teeth Whitening Advanced Kit comes with pre-loaded trays and claims to whiten teeth up to eight shades lighter. You can also get non-peroxide gel kits, like the Diamond Whites Home Whitening Kit (£39.99, diamondwhites.co.uk). Just don’t leave whitening strips or gels on longer than stated, or you’ll look like a piano got lost in there.