Charcoal vs Whitening: Which One Actually Works?

Looking to whiten your teeth with charcoal toothpaste. Think twice. Now I'll give you, as always, the benefits, the disadvantages, my personal experience. And then I'll leave it up to you to be the guru of your own wellness. So this is the four stages of my entire video. So let's start with charcoal toothpaste. Charcoal toothpaste has actually been in existence for years, hundreds of years. Now. Back in India when I was growing up, there used to be a tooth powder that had charcoal in it. A lot of people would take some mustard oil, put that on their finger and would use it. So, and a lot of women would do it thinking this would whiten their teeth. And then I forgot about it till one fine day I saw it crop up on Amazon back in about 10, 12, 14 years ago. And then everybody, everybody I knew was on the charcoal trend. But is it safe? Is it not safe? Let's dive into it. Number one, let's go with what are the possible advantages? Number one, it could potentially at least make you look or it could potentially whiten your teeth by removing surface stains. Number two, charcoal has detoxifying ability because charcoal has been used for ages to detoxify. So charcoal does take off all the bad germs, bacteria, odors. It does help with that. Fresh breath has been reported by a lot of people is another advantage with charcoal toothpaste. Now, on the other hand, let's come to the problems. So the number one problem is abrasion. Now, although the RDA for most of the companies is between 70 to 90. What is RDA? RDA is the abrasion number. For example, the abrasion in every toothpaste, we use either calcium carbonate or silica or charcoal or some kind of abrasive. Now, as long as the abrasive is gentle, it is great because it helps clean the teeth and remove the plaque off your enamel. But if it is too abrasive, it can mess you up. Now, a lot of people, once they start seeing a little bit of whitening effect, they start using the charcoal toothpaste several times a day, which is absolutely should not be done because that was will cause abrasion. A lot of dentists have reported that a lot of patients have come in with excess abrasion of their enamel. They've gotten a lot of gum recession, and they've attributed it to overuse of charcoal powders or charcoal toothpaste. A lot of companies have actually added bigger size of charcoal, which means those are going to be much more abrasive. They are not necessarily 70, 90 if you're using big companies, a CPG companies charcoal toothpaste, maybe 70 to 90 RDA which is similar to RDA of either something like calcium carbonate or silica. But certain companies that do not have experience in manufacturing toothpaste, their RDA is a lot bigger because lot more. The reason is because they are using much bigger size of charcoal particles. Now let's come to the second thing. What can happen once the enamel is actually eroded? It can cause sensitivity. You can feel hot and cold. You can have gum recession. Don't forget, even though you're using a charcoal toothpaste, it may only remove the surface stains. It cannot remove the stains below the enamel. Below the enamel is dentin number four. It does cause if the abrasion is too much, it does cause long term side effects where you will need dental intervention to remove all those side effects. So in case you are on the verge, think twice. Now let me give you my personal experience. I got really enchanted by charcoal toothpaste because I thought it's been around since I was a kid. Why not try it out? I tried it. Number one, the biggest problem is it makes a mess out of the sink. It kind of. And I was actually wearing a beautiful kurta pajama which is like an Indian night dress. I was wearing that and I was using the charcoal toothpaste. It kind of messed my entire neo kurta. I don't want that. And apart from that, it's just messy all over. I like it all absolutely clean now. Number three, what I realized is after using charcoal toothpaste for extended like 15, 20 day period, I started to feel a little sensitivity. Overall, that was my first red flag. So I personally decided to stop using it. And I started to literally look into exactly what was going on. I was going to come up with a big range in the Guru Nanda brand. I initially even did for a little bit. I stopped it. I didn't feel it was the right thing to do. But that is me. It's something that I don't use. I stop. And exactly that is what I did. Now I've given you the advantages, I've given you the disadvantages. You have to be the guru of your own wellness. If you're going to use it once a while, no problem. If you're going to use it as your everyday toothpaste, think twice. That's my thought. I'll let you do what you think is right.