As a formulator knowing what harsh and unhealthful cancer causing, tooth enamel eroding, chemicals are indeed in teeth whiteners, including (but not limited to) peroxide, titanium dioxide, trace amounts of arsenic, chlorides, silicates, heavy metals, polyol sweeteners, high instensity sweeteners, acids, etc., that are allowed under COSMETIC law for "oral care" products, you need to avoid these products folks!!!

Vanity and pride, thy name is EGO (and stupidity)!!!

Alternative?  Simple baking soda and water, and much LESS costly and just a tooth cleaning effective.

Your corpse will have nice white teeth with these whiteners, that have no history of long term use in humans, and that no one will see at the showing of your body, because the funeral home glued, or stitched, your lips together. 

Oral care products also include chewing gum, toothpaste, mouth wash, breath sprays, cough syrups, lip balms, throat lozenges, nasal sprays, breath mints, dissovlable and effervescent tablets, and the list goes on...

If it makes, or is, white, run in fright!  This stuff is poison at any dosage.

And oh yes, affrimations or representations your toothpaste is "all natural" are about as accurate as if refined and distilled high octane gasoline is really dinosaur juice.

The problem with using whitening products, even natural ones, it that it changes the standard for what a healthy, natural mouth should look like. Before teeth whitening the natural color of your teeth did not make you unattractive or less than your peers in the eyes of others. As this procedure becomes more popular, people with normal teeth begin to become self conscious about their teeth even though there is nothing wrong with them. Then they spend lots of money to fix the problem that was never there in the first place!

I'm not an expert, but common sense tells me that aging plays a role here. It is part of the quest to look 10 years younger than you really are. We dye our hair with chemicals, whiten our teeth, inject ourselves with toxins to remove wrinkles...when will Americans wake up and realize how insane it is to attempt to be 25 forever?

I actually agree with Mercola on this one, but what about veneers/lumineers?  I contracted spinal meningitis when I was a child and was given 60 doses of penicillin, permanently giving my teeth an off-white color, so bleaching methods will not work anyway, but I have seen people with lumineers, and though they have striking smiles, you can tell they have had work done.  I am not sure if having a prettier smile will help you get a better job or a bigger raise, but thinner (not sure about taller), more attractive people are treated better by society as a whole. 

As far as I know, if you have really crooked teeth and they really bother you, braces (the clear mouth-plate kind, not the metal ones, which I have heard are painful) work (I am not sure if you still have to wear a retainer afterward, but if you do, you must ask yourself, do you want the perfect smile bad enough to make it a lifetime committment).  And, if your teeth are really discolored, as long as veneers and the like are safe, if you have the money, why not? 

According to Weston A Price (if you have been reading Mercola long enough), people used to be born with straight, white teeth, but because of all this processed food we eat, we now have the need for orthodontics, so, according to Dr Price, straight, white teeth is what we are supposed to have, and perhaps that is where this ideal of beauty comes in.  I do disagree with him, however, that I do not find broad faces (which also says we are supposed to have, perhaps, to be able to hold all those teeth?) attractive.  Audrey Hepburn (who has a narrow face and a slight frame) is considered very beautiful, or at least quite lovely, and when I think of broad faces, I think of Rosie O'Donnells. 

I do believe some cosmetic procedures are relatively safe (nothing is completely safe--driving isn't safe, does that mean we shouldn't drive?).  I mean, if a woman has had a mastectomy, I wouldn't blame her for wanting reconstructive surgery, or what about a burn victim?  The world isn't very kind to unattractive people.  Perhaps if it was, then we wouldn't be so hung up on looks. 

I would really like to know Mercola's professional opinion on other cosmetic dental procedures.