Is there anything harmful about using baking soda to whiten teeth?

Question

I've heard that a technique to whitening teeth is to brush with a little bit of baking soda on toothpaste. Well I want to know if anything could go wrong or if it could hurt my teeth?

Answer 1

Baking Soda won't whiten your teeth unless you have a lot of staining. A whitening toothpaste will do the same thing and won't taste as bad. Nothing actually whitens our teeth except for bleaching the teeth... and that active ingredient is call Carbomide Peroxide (not to be confused with Hydrogen Peroxide- which would do nothing for whitening your teeth either).

Whitening toothpastes are just really abrasive (like baking soda) and will remove any stain left on the outer enamel. Bleaching the teeth will actually whiten the color of the enamel to a whiter lighter shade.