If a company makes toothpaste they likely also sell at-home teeth whitening kits.
All kinds of brands names promise to brighten your smile, but do they all live up to that promise?
Stephanie Moreira has tried one of them out.
"Crest White Strips I think it was," she recalls.
She says she just wanted to see what it would do for her smile.
The kits range in price from $15 to $55, but do they work?
Consumer reports put eight kits to the test, some of the kits come with trays, some with strips that stick to your teeth and others still have strips that dissolve.
"We had over 80 staff members try out one kit each," Gayle Williams from Consumer Reports said.
A device called a colorimeter was used to take a look at the staff's teeth before and after the colour was done.
The results were not as brilliant as suggested in the advertisements.
"Don't expect dramatic results. None of the kits offered a cover girl white smile," Williams said.
It was like a two week thing and it didn't do anything," Moreira said.
Dentist Dr. Ernest Cholakis is not surprised by the results.
"The home kits that you can purchase at the drug stores are usually on the very low end of concentration, usually about six to eight or ten per cent carbonite peroxide," Cholakis said.
Cholakis says the whitening solution is not directly applied to the surface of the tooth which prevents you from getting gleaming white teeth.
Cholakis offers two types of teeth whitening systems in his office.
One is a kit you can take home where a mold of your teeth is taken and mouth guards are slipped right over your teeth.
The solution works while you sleep.
The other method is the laser whitening system.
"It's claim to fame is that you come to the dentist with yellow teeth and one and a half hours later you leave with white teeth," Cholakis said.
Those methods do not come cheap and will cost you in the range of $300 to $600.
If you cannot afford that there is a glimmer of hope.
The consumer reports tests found the Crest White Strips Supreme at home kit outperformed the others with a rating of very good.
Even the dentist approves and says because it sticks to your teeth it is more effective.
They come with a price of just $50 dollars.
Dr. Cholakis says the whitening systems dentists offer can be safer because a dentist can monitor your gums, teeth and enamel.
All whitening systems including those you can buy at a store may cause temporary tooth and gum sensitivity.
With a report from CTV's Rachel Lagac�
