These Certified Non-Toxic Whitening Strips Brightened My Smile in Just Five Days

Coffee. Curry. Red wine. If there’s a food or drink out there that can make your teeth look like you’ve been eating fistfuls of dirt, you can bet it’s a regular part of my routine. In fact, I’d venture that the vast majority of the things I eat and drink would make most cosmetic dentists faint. That’s why I’ve been a major user of various whitening products for years. If there’s a toothpaste, mouthwash, or gritty, unpleasant charcoal- or baking-soda-based product I can grind into my chompers at night, you can bet I’ve used it. And while I’ve wanted to love the whitening strips I’ve tried in the past, the searing pain they cause me (and the sensitivity to cold for days afterward) has kept them from becoming a regular part of my oral care routine. That’s why when I heard about Lumineux’s teeth whitening strips, which promise to remove stains in just 30 minutes without causing sensitivity, I jumped at the chance to try them. 

Here’s what Lumineux says sets their product apart from competitors: the brand claims the strips whitened study participants’ teeth an average of 14 shades in two weeks, no users reported pain or damage to their gums or teeth during the study period, and the strips themselves don’t contain any artificial dyes or flavors and are made without the use of preservatives or additives. Instead, they’re packed with sage oil, lemon peel oil, coconut oil, and dead sea salt. And while the FDA hasn’t co-signed the brand’s whitening claims, the whitening strips have nearly 25,000 reviews and a 4.5/5-star average rating on Amazon.

Upon opening the Lumineux strips, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they smell really good. Like, I would wear this scent as a perfume, despite it not being perfumy, per se. The strips themselves were a bit less plasticky feeling and slightly more gelatinous than the whitening strips I’m used to, but not in a way that was—for lack of a better word—icky.

Applying the strips was as easy as putting on any other tooth-whitening product I’ve tried: you simply peel, apply to your teeth, and wait 30 minutes. After the timer went off, I removed the strips, and it did seem that my teeth looked ever-so-slightly less dingy.

After a few days, I definitely noticed some results, but without any of the sensitivity I’d come to expect from most tooth-whitening products I’d tried in the past. Better yet, the whitening came without the most dreaded result I typically get from tooth-whitening products: weird white spots on my teeth that tend to go away after a few days, but leave me somewhat panicked in the interim. 

Of course, not every single thing about the strips can be 100% perfect: by the time I took them off, they were a bit, shall we say, goopier, than your standard tooth-whitening strip, but it felt like a relatively small price to pay for whiter teeth without the intense sensitivity I’m used to from this type of product. 

While I haven’t used all of the 42 strips that come in the Lumineux pack, I will say that the 10 I have used have been well worth it—and at just $44.99 for the box, you can bet my frantic searches for terms like, “emergency teeth whitening right now ASAP” and “can you get all of your teeth replaced with whiter ones without paying for a full set of veneers” can be put on pause for the time being as I enjoy my pearly whites.