Let’s Just Get to the Point:
This paint-on smile whitener covers up stains and irregularities, and lasts all day long sans bleach or peroxide.
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My boyfriend really loves me. So much so that he helped me test drive temporary tooth paint. And the crazy thing is, he may love this mouth makeup even more than he loves me now. Keep reading for the reasons why.
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The HaloSmile Kit ($59.99 for six applications) feels a bit like a cosmetic chemist’s experiment. The set comes with separate components—namely the liquid “activator” and the tooth-whitening powder—and required us to follow a recipe of sorts to get the right mixture with both, using one of the provided brush applicators to do so. Though the DIY aspect stressed us out a smidge, we did end up having fun blending the components to create the paste that would soon coat our smiles.
The next part felt a little weird. After getting our solution juuuust right, we dried our teeth with a paper towel, which is not as easy as it sounds and infinitely more awkward. It’s fairly difficult to get the entire surface of the tooth devoid of saliva, so a comical mouth piece is provided to keep anything from touching teeth, though we opted to haphazardly use our fingers and manually move lips out of the way. After a slight struggle, we launched right into the most terrifying step at all: the actual application.
Armed with a short, flat-tipped brush, we channeled our inner Rembrandt and painted each visible tooth (no point reaching to the teeth below your smile line) with care. A couple things to note here: less is definitely more. We learned the hard way that streaks show, so we watched each brushstroke, careful not to touch the gum, and made sure that we only covered an area once, with parallel lines. The formula is somewhat buildable, so it was apparent when we went back over an area. The good news is that the “makeup” is tinted from the get-go so it’s super easy to see where it has been applied. The instructional video claims that this part of the process is a bit like painting your own nails and by an unanimous vote, we also agreed.
The next part of the process reminded us of why we loved each other—the whitener requires a full minute of “drying out” and forced us to fight back laughter as we maniacally grinned wide at each other, attempting to not “smudge” our canvases. The provided instructions suggested that we take an actual hairdryer to our mouths to expedite this step, which is something that I do not by any means recommend. Though in full transparency, one of us did try this technique from a safe distance before giggling, messing up the makeup, and having to touch up one of the teeth as a result. (Can you guess which one of us this was?) If any accidents like the above occur, tiny cotton rolls are included in the set and can help wipe off excess or streaky product before repainting—which is something we had to do a few times.
In the spirit on the manicure analogy, a top coat is applied to the teeth after the whitener, which was simple enough to do because by this time, we had painted and repainted our teeth so many times we probably could’ve earned an art degree. Though probably not necessary, we let our teeth air dry again out of complete paranoia and laugh factor.
In terms of results, the peroxide- and bleach-free whitener comes in two shades: “natural white” and “celebrity white.” We both selected the natural version, wanting to grab a very public dinner after applying without garnering horrified stares. Lo and behold, the color did stick around post-meal (with red wine even) and though it did come off a little with a toothbrush later that night, I swore my smile still appeared white that next morning when I woke up. The brand claims a duration of 24-hours for the result, and if we had tried the brighter, whiter color, I’m sure we’d have had an easier time discerning whether or not the mouth makeup held up long-term. At the end of the day, the entire process—though at first daunting—was a fun activity to do together and kept us laughing with our newly pearled whites.
