Dr. Austin believes that having a beautiful and confident smile can have a positive impact on every aspect of peoples lives including improving their career success, social life, and even finding love. To help achieve this mission, in June 2018 she launched her new affordable teeth whitening and oral care product line called VIP Smiles. Now consumers everywhere can experience a taste of the smile magic that Dr. Austin brings to her patients in her practice from the comforts of their own homes.

Dr. Austin says, I take my job as a cosmetic dentist very seriously and quite personally because dentistry actually changed my life as a teen. When I was a young child I noticed that my teeth were different. They were too long, they flared out, and I had multiple spaces between my teeth. By the time I reached high school, I really started to feel a bit self-conscious about my smile. So at the age of 15, my mom invested in braces to improve my smile. When the braces were removed 1 year later, my life completely changed!

Dr. Catrise Austin recently got a chance to test this theory out when she was called by the popular VH1 reality TV show Love and Hip Hop New York to transform the smile of its breakout star rapper Cardi B who had been constantly ridiculed on social media about her less than perfect smile. In just 2 visits, Dr. Austin transformed Cardi Bs smile with porcelain veneers and literally changed her life. When the smile transformation debuted on the season premiere episode of season 7 of Love and Hip Hop New York Fall 2016, it sparked a nationwide smile makeover frenzy! Now Dr. Catrise Austin is living her dreams by helping consumers from all over the world feelThe Power of a Smile.

Independent consumer studies conducted on behalf of The American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD) have proved that a beautiful smile will not only make you more attractive, but a new smile will also make you appear more intelligent, interesting, successful, and wealthy to others as well.

If you're like most people, you want to keep your teeth as healthy and as white as possible. That's why so many people are interested in finding the best toothpaste for veneers. Veneers are a great way to improve the look of your smile, but it's important to make sure you're using the right toothpaste to protect them. In this blog post, we'll discuss some of the best kinds of toothpaste for veneers and how they can help keep your smile looking its best.

I'm super excited to have one of my dear friends and colleagues, Dr. Mina Kim here, and I was inspired to do this blog post and podcast episode when I saw her featured in an article in Bustle magazine and the article was about the best toothpaste for your porcelain veneers. Now, I have porcelain veneers, so this was especially interesting for me, but it is one of the questions that I get from patients all the time. So we're going to talk about it.

I am so excited to talk about three kinds of toothpaste and some more that are good for your dental veneers. So in general, when you're brushing your teeth, when you're taking care of your veneers, you definitely want to do the same exact things that you do with your normal, natural teeth, brushing, flossing, rinsing your mouth to get rid of the bacteria in all of your mouth, and cleaning your tongue and we'll talk about this a little bit later. But let's talk about that toothpaste.

Oh yeah. And when they come in and the first thing that they say is, 'Oh, my teeth are sensitive doc.' It 's usually because they 're either brushing too hard or using the wrong textured manual brush. My advice is don 't use a hard bristle toothbrush. Don 't use a medium and I know it makes sense, right doc? The harder the brush, the better it should brush your teeth, right? But those bristles that are medium or hard are way too hard for the enamel.

No. Save those for scrubbing your jewelry or scrubbing floors. That is not for your teeth. The best way to explain it, I think is that plaque is soft. Plaque should be able to be removed with a soft touch. Anything that you cannot remove by gently brushing your teeth, you need to go see your dentist because you should not have anything at home that you can remove any buildup with.

Right and that's why the second step of flossing is super important because a lot of times we get the plaque that's soft above the gum line, but we're not getting below the gum and removing that bacteria and it's just as important. I would even say even more important to get below the gums where that foundation is, the bone, and the fibers that are holding that tooth to the bone. If you don't get rid of the plaque and tartar in that area, man, you are going to start to get bone loss, severe infections, and then your whole veneer investment is really in jeopardy.

Yeah. These are my favorite, the flossers. You get a bag of these or a box of these and you have your little toothpick on one side. So you can literally get between the teeth and get those crevices, but then you take the floss, and it 's just 'grab and go'. You take the floss and you get in between, hold it against a tooth, like a C and just, you 're cleaning the sides of the tooth. That 's what we want to do.

We don 't want any sugar, plaque, any food particles, we don 't want anything in that area. So a lot of people say, 'Oh, I go zigzag.' And I 'm like, 'Oh, you 're flossing, but then you 're not doing it properly.'

That's it. And that's why this article was super important because it's about maintenance. So let's talk about some of the best toothpaste for veneers that we recommend and some of the factors that we want to look at when we're thinking about the toothpaste to care for our porcelain veneers. Now in the article, there were three recommendations we'll go through. We'll talk about that, but the one thing I want to get into is, there's a chart and a measure by which we determine which toothpastes are safer for the teeth and veneers and that's called the Relative Dentin Abrasivity, right? Can you explain what the RDA is?

Sure. RDA simply put, all it is a measurement of how gritty your toothpaste is. Think about sandpaper. It comes in fine, extra-fine, and coarse. Toothpaste is the same way and you want to pick something with a low RDA, and that's from zero to 70 is in your lower range.

When I looked at the RDA chart, I saw something very interesting. The thing that had the lowest RDA was brushing your teeth and your veneers with just the toothbrush and water. That has the lowest chances of harming your teeth and veneers. What do you think about that? Have you ever brushed your teeth without any type of toothpaste, just water?

I always use toothpaste. If you're in a position where you don't have toothpaste, it's better than not brushing at all. But toothpaste has things like fluoride, which I consider to be like vitamins for your teeth that help make them stronger, and having a stronger base under those veneers is going to help them to last longer. So I do recommend using toothpaste.

Fluoride in large amounts is toxic but you and me, we can probably, for whatever reason, if we decided to eat a whole tube of toothpaste, we would still probably survive. But then a little child, that's small like a baby, if they potentially eat a lot of toothpaste, they can actually die. So yes, fluoride in large amounts is toxic, but so are a lot of things. Chocolate bars, Alcohol, a lot of things.

The important part is to use it according to the ADA, which is the American Dental Association's recommendations. And the recommendation is, you're going to use a little more than a pea-size amount, and you only need a small amount, it goes a long way.

That is correct. So for those who are a little hesitant, it was added to our water, most areas, definitely our metropolitan areas, we have it in our water and I must say, when I have patients come in, those who don't drink our city water, fluoridated water, I tend to see more cavities. That's one of the things that I ask. Do you drink bottled water or tap water? And a lot of times the people who have more cavities tend to drink bottled water and I do see a big difference.

I think it is helpful to reduce cavities, especially if you are cavity prone. I think it is beneficial, but I know a lot of people listening and reading, I 'm probably going to get a lot of comments, 'fluoride toothpaste. Oh my God, she recommended I use fluoride' but I don 't know, the community still stands by fluoride so we got to share what the science says.

So the first is Sensodyne Pronamel. Sensodyne is tried and true, especially if you have sensitivity. Now, a lot of times when we place the veneers, our patients will have a little sensitivity for a day or two. Everybody responds differently, but it 's not uncommon. Any time you have any dental work, or there 's any type of drilling to your teeth, any alteration to the tooth structure, I always tell people, 'Don 't be surprised if you experience a little sensitivity for the first day or two days, sometimes longer. If you came in with sensitive teeth, you may leave or continue to have sensitive teeth.' And I just love Sensodyne Pronamel and one of the things that it does is it puts a protective coating over the nerve. So it puts a barrier over the nerve.

If you're not familiar with the tooth, you have the outside enamel and then underneath that, and that outside enamel is naturally white. The inside of the tooth is naturally yellow, that's called the dentin so when you guys are trying to whiten your teeth, that's the area where the peroxide and whitening agent is working.

And then right underneath that area is the nerve. So a lot of times, if you have sensitivity before I do a professional teeth whitening, or I do any extensive cosmetic dental work, I'll recommend that you use a formula like Sensodyne Pronamel so you can get that protective layer over the nerves and when we're working with you, you'll have a more pleasant experience.

And this is one of the lowest. I think Sensodyne, I recommend it, as you do, very often, because so many of my emergency patients come because they have sensitivity and sometimes this could be easily solved by using a toothpaste like Sensodyne. Not only can you brush with it, sometimes if you're going in a situation where you're very sensitive for a few days like everything cold is just really triggering you, you can also literally put the Sensodyne on your gums.

Sensodyne has an ingredient called potassium nitrate, and that's the ingredient that kind of forms a protective layer, that's going to help block some of the sensitive, the stuff that's making you really sensitive.

The maker is Premier and you can find this on Amazon. It's not going to pop up as easily as some of the other kinds of toothpaste do, but you can find it and when you find it, you may experience a little bit of sticker shock because it is not cheap, but it gets great reviews as well.

So if you also have a dry mouth, this may help you, instead of having to use this and maybe a rinse, sometimes this can help. Of course, you always need to consult with your dentist to see what's best for your particular case.

So let's talk about the third toothpaste, which is also surprising. It's Tom's of Maine Children's Toothpaste. The strawberry flavor. Wow! I would've never thought Dr. Kim to use a children's toothpaste as an adult, but it's perfectly okay, right?

Definitely. And I think with the children's toothpaste, typically, there are formulations without fluoride. This one does have fluoride, but they're made to kind of taste better and with Tom's also, you have a lot more like natural ingredients. It's free of certain preservatives if that's something you're very conscious of. So you can maybe feel a lot better about using this.

You'll find Tom's of Maine definitely if you are a Whole Food's shopper, they always carry Tom's of Maine. Of course, it's on Amazon, but in the naturals sections of most dental toothpaste aisles, you will find Tom's and yes, they are known for being an organic or natural toothpaste and I love it.

What do you do when the most famous nail tech comes to you and wants to have the most beautiful smile makeover on earth? You take her call! I'm so excited to have two-time Nail Artist of the Year, Jenny Bui in the building. She's going to get a fabulous new smile from me. You know how I do it! She is getting an award, and I cannot wait to give her that red carpet smile. We're going to light her smile up and make her the star of the awards show.

Jenny Bui is one of the most famous nail artists out there! She's best known as the 'Queen of Bling' for her incredible nail art. She's won numerous awards for her creativity, including being named Nail Artist Influencer of the Year in 2019. Jenny has worked with many well-known celebrities, but she's probably best known as the creator of Cardi Bs infamous blinged-out fingernails.

She reached out to me because she is receiving the coveted Journey Award in Atlanta. These awards honor 'selfless visionaries who inspire others through their incredible journey.' This is Jenny 's first time receiving this award and her excitement is contagious.

It was such a pleasure to sit with her and talk about her journey in the beauty industry and how far she's come. Her excitement at just being here, not just for the awards but working with me too, is infectious.

Jenny explains why she decided to get a smile transformation and why she chose VIP Smiles and Dr. Catrise Austin. She stated that had been really unhappy with her teeth and she had been to other dentists in the past but was not pleased with the results. She said, 'another dentist makes my teeth come out like a hump.' Jenny goes on to say that she was impressed with Cardi B 's teeth, whose smile makeover was done by none other than, 'The Queen of Smiles! ' She said she saw Cardi 's teeth and said, ' I want my teeth to look natural... Oh my God, I was jealous of Cardi Teeth. You know, every time she smiles. Oh my God! Her teeth are, so beautiful...'

She had many choices when it came to getting her porcelain veneers, there were a lot of other cosmetic dentists who contacted her, but she said that she 's done her research and knew about me from Cardi B. 'I trusting you! It 's because of Cardi!'

She was a little nervous before her veneers procedure, but once we got started and she saw the shape of her new smile, she loved it! The confidence this woman has... I love working with people who are willing to go outside of their comfort zone. And I love working with people who want to make a difference as Jenny does! She cares about her clients and she takes care of them!

All right, so guys, we have just spent a few hours with my girl, Jenny Bui. You know 'The Queen of Bling', and the two-time Nail Artist of the Year. And we have just placed her porcelain veneers. Her teeth look absolutely amazing! She's going to be shining brighter than diamonds at the awards show. And I'm excited for her because she is so happy.

She was very excited about seeing the finished results and couldn 't wait to show off her amazing new smile at the upcoming Journey Awards. She went on to say, 'I 'm in love with my teeth! I want to say thank you to you! Look how beautiful my smile is! Oh my God!'