White Teeth

And I'm not talking about Zadie Smith's debut novel.

You'd have to be living on Mars not to have noticed that in the past few years the oral hygiene industry has ramped up a huge campaign for whiter teeth. Where once you had to go into the dentist for a cleaning or some expensive laser whitening treatment now there are numerous pastes, gels and strips that one can apply to one's teeth to give you that perfect white tooth smile.

Stepping back a bit from this comment, I remember back in the day going to a dentist who was trying to convince me I needed braces to correct some small gap in my teeth because as he put it to me you cant get ahead in this world without a good smile. Hmm maybe that explains my present predicament, I'd probably be paid in the shade if I had taken his advice. Oh well, I was a student at that time, I was broke and I wasn't trying to use my university tuition to send him on an additional vacation to Europe. Hell no!

Anyway back to this perfect smile business. You cant escape the advertising these days. Whitening crystals, new whitening formulas, just put on overnight for new whiteness, brush on and see results etc. Y'all remember liquid paper (correction fluid) that you would put on your ink page to erase a mistake when you had a handwritten paper to hand in (I'm dating myself aint I?) Well I think I see something so on the market already for teeth; just brush on and instant white teeth. LOL. I should still try a ting an see if I cant find somebody stupid enough to put real correction fluid on their teeth though. Well since no one writes with pens anymore I have to find a use for the product ya know!

Although I can confess to using some of the whitening products, not seriously just like I bought a toothpaste and it had some whitening agents in it, I still remain a bit skeptical about the chemistry behind this process though. Fast forward a few years in the future and who knows nuff man might be walking around with dentures because this whitening thing cause his teeth to drop out and leff him with bare gums. lol

So Sunday morning I'm taking a break from cooking and I turn on the TV. Now Sunday morning TV is absolutely dreadful unless you want to watch televangelists and informercials. I found this movie with Renee Zelweigger and Chris O'Donnell (no idea of the name) on TBS but I wasn't feeling it so I channel surfed a bit and came across the informercials.

I had been laughing at de wife for watching some silly informercial about some new age corset (except they don't call it a corset any more and its made of new space age fibers) which lifts, squeezes, tucks and basically is a tool used by women to fool men the world over just like the damn wonderbra. That stuff should be illegal! lol. Of course secretly I had been watching an informercial for Time Life's Soul Ballad collection (not available in stores) which looks like the bomb but certainly isn't worth no 4 payments of $37.95 (not in this age of internet downloads).

So anyway there I was channel surfing when I came across a sight of some persons with this weird device clamped between their lips. Whoa hold up, what's this? Its called the Ion something (I know the name but I wont link it exactly) and it looks like a space age cross between a plastic mouth organ and those breathing devices that Obi Wan and Qui-Gon used on Naboo in Episode 1.

The informercial went something like this. Put the device in your mouth for 20 minutes and voila whiter teeth. I stayed transfixed to the screen watching random folks recommend the product and bling blinging with the white teeth while waiting to hear the typical informercial background voice tell me how this device worked.

Apparently you place a gel in the part you bite down on and then you place your teeth in the gel and then these LED light things activate the 'harmless' gel and in 20 minutes it works wonders on your teeth. Wow! That's pretty amazing.

So there are like a million 'random' people giving testimonials.
"I've tried strips and they never got my teeth that white."
"Wow this is incredible, look how white my teeth are!"
"I feel like a movie star!"
"and just in 20 minutes this is great, look at my before picture and my after picture"
"It even got rid of the coffee stains!"
"Why would I go to the dentist and pay hundreds of dollars when I could use this?"
Of course there were missing a random bajan fella who would do something so
'You, boss man lemma tell ya this! Looka, see me, my teeth did look real black den cause I used ta smoke nuff nuff cigarettes and I is a man dat love ta eat nuff nuff roast corn an ting so. But dem gi me this thing an at first I was like boss you musse tek me fa a pieca idiot cause I aint puttin dat igrant looking ting in my mouth but the fellas convince me ta do um and looka hayso (While grinning broadly) 20 minutes lata my teeth brand new den! cheese on bread I styling den, the chossels (girlfriends, women) gine like this bad bad bad."

In my opinion the best testimonial came from this lady who said "Not only do my teeth look whiter but they feel whiter too!" Feel whiter too, umm lady thats probably because the product is eating away the damn enamel on your teeth.

I mean seriously they are promoting this product and saying you get better results in 20 minutes than with 2 hrs of laser treatment at the dentist. Did I hear correct? Two hours of laser treatment? Laser treatment? You mean lasers those things that cut through stuff, that space men duz shoot at one another? Those focused light rays that are used to clean off objects and leave them looking all spick and span? Lasers that can be used for pretty much anything and your products are stronger on teeth than lasers? I don't know about you but that scares the hell out of me.

I'm not putting that thing in my mouth if they pay me. I would go the Slick Rick route "Great Scott are you a thief seems like you have a mouth full of Gold teeth" first before I put any of that stuff in my mouth. Cause anything that when used for 20 minutes is stronger than a 2 hr laser session highly disturbs me.

But I figure those same fellas that selling this thing this year going to come back next year when all their product users teeth fall out and be selling dentures made with a space age polymer developed by NASA or something so. Actually I should be looking to get some shares with them boy now that I think about it! Looka ignore everything I just say go and buy the people product and let me mek some money. :-)