I’m big into whitening up my smile and live and die with Crest Whitening Strips on my teeth (I buy them from eBay) so I’m always keen to try whitening products you can get locally. Enter Swiss dental brand Curaprox, now available in South Africa.

Curaprox Black is White tough whitening toothpaste (R240) is pretty interesting in that it’s black as the ace of spades thanks to its activated charcoal content. Charcoal is great at absorbing many times its weight in toxins and gas which is why doctors sometimes administer it to those who’ve been poisoned. Curaprox, however, reckon the charcoal in their tooth paste can absorb stain particles to help whiten up your teeth without the use of abrasives or bleach that could potentially damage your tooth’s enamel.

I’ve been using it for a good ten days now and its taught me I’m the messiest brusher ever. My entire bathroom sink gets covered in specs of black after every use no matter how hard I try to reign things in, but I can tell that my teeth appear whiter. Not as much as I would get from a white strip, but hey, at least it’s sparing me some damage from the bleach and its seeing me reach for the strips less often. Curaprox’s toothpaste also contains a blue filter so its got a temporary optical effect too in that yellowness is less visible when you’ve got a slightly blue tint layered on top of it.

Aside from the toothpaste, Curaprox also gave me their very sexy-looking Hydrosonic Black is White toothbrush (R2 500). It arrived with the activated charcoal toothpaste plus two super soft brush heads and is powered by a super strong battery that gives you 40 minutes of brush time and can be re-charged via a USB cable. As far as functionality goes, it’s got one button that switches it on and off but holding it down can select one of three modes – ‘soft’ for sensitive teeth, ‘intensive’ and ‘massage’ to improve the circulation of your gums.

Being an ‘all in to the max’ kind of girl I like to use it on intensive where it serves up a whopping 42 000 strokes per minute. That’s a good 10 000 more strokes per minute than the Philips Sonicare HealthyWhite I was using before it (it kicked the dust the moment its warranty ran out) but you get used to that quickly. I actually now prefer it because I use it to brush my retainer at night and the smaller head makes it super easy to get into every nook and cranny.

Don’t have deep pockets? Curaprox also offer a white sonic toothbrush for R1 650. It won’t look as striking in your bathroom, but it will get the job done much the same.

Love, love

Leigh