Posted on January 30, 2015 by Liz Mahlich
Looking for a whiter smile before your wedding day? There is a wonderfully natural way to accomplish this without spending tons of money at the dentist office, or wearing annoying strips on your teeth. Oil pulling. If you are crunchy, or mildly interested in natural health, you may have heard of this term before. For others, you may think I’m crazy. Oil pulling??
Oil pulling is amazing and has been around for thousands of years. Just recently it has become trendy, along with many other natural health remedies. Not only will it give you a whiter smile, but it has numerous other health benefits. Whiter smile, and become healthier before your wedding day? Are you intrigued now?
The method to whiten your teeth, and better your health, requires you to swish around an oil, preferably organic coconut oil, in your mouth for 20 minutes. Sounds a little intense, right? Even being on the crunchy side, I thought so too. But I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to heath, and might be a little vain…who doesn’t want white teeth (especially to remove all those red wine stains! eek!)?
Being a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner in training, I also was very interested in all the added health benefits. Coconut oil has antibacterial, antivirus and anti fungal properties, which help clean out germs in our mouth and prevent gingivitis, bad breath, and boost the immune system. Our oral health is very important to our overall health. With a healthy mouth there is less chances for inflammation in our body. Other great side affects are healing cracked lips, moisturizing sinuses and throat.
One morning, I took the plunge. I put a big glob of coconut oil in my mouth. It is solid, so I had to wait for it to melt…then I swished it around. One minute in and I was bored out of my mind. Being the queen of multitasking, I realized I could do this while I took a shower and blew dry my hair.
Be careful not to go over 20 minutes. The full 20 minutes to key to ensure the toxins and stains are removed, but if you go longer than 20 minutes, the toxins can start to be absorbed back into your blood stream. You don’t want that to happen after all the hard work of swishing! Spit the oil out in the trash (not down the drain as the oil will harden, and that can’t be good…unless you have a cute plumber of course!)
The last step is to brush your teeth. I was so surprised at how white my teeth looked after my first time! They also felt as smooth as a dental cleaning. It might have been a foreign routine, but one I was willing to add into my daily life.
I would recommend starting this a few months before your wedding to ensure you have time to remove all the stains from your teeth. Happy swishing!
