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Apr 21, 2024

Why We Love Crest 3D Whitestrips

There’s nothing quite like a kid to tell you the truth. According to my kindergarten-age daughter, my singing voice is passable, the pink Zara dress I bought three summers ago is breathtaking, and my

There’s nothing quite like a kid to tell you the truth.

According to my kindergarten-age daughter, my singing voice is passable, the pink Zara dress I bought three summers ago is breathtaking, and my teeth are yellow.

But thanks to Crest 3D Whitestrips 1-Hour Express, the latter is something I can address immediately whenever she reminds me.

I’ve sworn by these whitening strips since their launch almost a decade ago. They’re easy to apply, work quickly, and show demonstrable results.

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If you’re deeply committed to a teeth-whitening routine, you may have already seen a professional. Maybe you have the trays and have your dentition sorted. But if teeth whitening is comfortably positioned in the middle of your self-improvement list—in the top 10, but not at the top—then Crest 3D Whitestrips 1-Hour Express are an excellent option.

The concept is simple: Sticky plastic bands are coated with a colorless, odorless, mostly tasteless bleaching agent—in this case, a hydrogen peroxide gel. Ideally, you put the strips on your teeth, wait a bit, and peel them off, welcoming in a new era of a whiter smile.

The concentration of the gel and the duration you’re meant to keep the strips on per treatment can vary, as can the results. Generally, a higher concentration whitens your teeth more but also increases potential for tooth sensitivity, especially if you already have sensitive teeth. The Crest 3D Whitestrips 1-Hour Express sit in that sweet spot of max results, reasonable time commitment, and nonexistent pain (at least for me).

Crest says its express whitening strips contain a 10% concentration of hydrogen peroxide. For context, the original 3D Whitestrips, which have been shown to work, reportedly contain only 6%; the Philips Zoom treatment available from a dentist’s office uses 25%. A rugged former college athlete told me they found the Zoom treatments “excruciating.” That’s a no for me.

For starters, the strips stay on. Older versions would glide and drift sort of grossly along your bite. These are so sticky, you need to look in a mirror and use a focused pincer grip to remove. They’re not particularly gooey or messy.

And perhaps most important, I see results after a single hour-long treatment. If I get on a kick—say three or four days—my teeth are pleasingly bright. I notice it particularly around friends. If you start looking, you’ll see too: People’s teeth are yellow. And mine, well, are not. It’s a brightness akin to what I looked like before my Moccamaster era, but not quite as pearly white as I’ll look in my reunion show host era. And my colleagues agree. Supervising editor Josh Lyon is still kicking himself for spending an “absurd” amount on a professional whitening treatment that wasn’t as effective as when he’d used 3D Whitestrips. Staffers with sensitive teeth and receding gums had likewise good experiences and rave results.

For me, the difference is notable enough that my partner comments unprompted. Usually, a few days later I’ll notice him walking around midday with a suspiciously closed-lip smile, too. He’s whitening!

I strictly advise you never to ask for validation from a child, but when I’ve been unwise but whitened, I’ve feigned casualness and asked my daughter if my teeth look whiter. An inelegant inspection. “Yup. Can you find my dalmatian Squishmallow?” Reader, I rest my case.

Are there downsides? Sure. The size of the strips are not customizable, and everyone’s mouth is different.The strips are 1.5 cm high, which means I’m able to fold them over the top and bottom edges of my teeth in a snug envelope. As my partner will tell you, if you’re longer in the tooth, you may not enjoy as secure a seal.

I’m the proud owner of a snaggle tooth—one of my bottom center teeth is on its own journey about a row back from its colleagues. It’s hard to press the strip and the gel into that spot quite as well; that tooth misses out on as potent a whitening. Her loss.

And while some Amazon reviewers do experience increased sensitivity, especially after a few treatments, most seem largely pleased with the process and results.

Of course the results you see also vary depending on how your teeth are stained and if you stick with the regimen (which may be harder for those with sensitive teeth). My teeth are daily-coffee stained and can’t-bite-a-popsicle sensitive. The Crest 3D Whitestrips 1-Hour Express box has 10 treatments; the company advertises that it brightens teeth up to 12 shades whiter. By comparison, the original strips use lower concentration bleaching agents and claim to deliver results up to six shades whiter.

If you want quicker or brighter results, the LED kit—which requires you to hold a curved blue light up to your mouth for five minutes after your treatment—claims results up to 30 shades whiter. I’ve tried the LED device too and found it incredible, but I lost it and haven’t bought a new one, since the strips are pretty excellent on their own too.

Some of my colleagues swear by other versions of Crest 3D Whitestrips.

After a less-than-ideal experience with professional teeth whitening, Josh switched to 3D Whitestrips Professional Effects. If he has a special event coming up, he uses them for about a week ahead of time. “It lightens them just enough in that brief period to look natural (I’m not into the blinding white teeth look, I think it’s creepy), and I don’t worry as much about doing any additional damage to my enamel,” he says.

Costco sells bundle packs that come with a mix of Professional Effects and 1-Hour Express strips, which deals staff writer Kaitlin Mahar uses to her advantage. “If I’m short on time I’ll throw on the Professional Effects strips, but I like that the express strips offer a deeper whitening treatment if I’ve got more time,” she says. “I may or may not have also worn them on longer flights now and then since I’m not doing much else while I’m up in the sky—unless that’s weird, in which case I definitely don’t do that.”

This article was edited by Annemarie Conte and Ben Frumin.

Hannah Morrill

Hannah Morrill is an editor on Wirecutter’s style team, spearheading the gifts and beauty sections. For the past decade, she has worked as a freelance writer and editor for publications such as Allure, Elle, and InStyle, among others. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her partner and their two children.

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