Never before I have regretted not taking “before” pictures so much. It is about 3 months ago that I decided to just dump a little of that activated charcoal in my mouth and held it there for some minutes. Just to see what happened. You know, experiments and all. IMMEDIATELY, there was whitening. Immediately, after rinsing out all the black. I was hooked. But not convinced. For the first two weeks, I did this religiously, every night after brushing my teeth. My teeth are whiter than they’ve been since I was a teenager. For the last week, I’ve only done it three times. I’m thinking even two times a week as a “maintenance dose” will be perfect. So I recommend you to try this also and combine it with a toothpaste that is full of essentials and minerals, and without toxic addidtives as described above in the article, I guarantee you won't be dissapointed however if you don't like the taste of your DIY toothpaste you should experiment a little with different things to add like citron or whatever you like to taste ;) Goodluck & I hope this helped you!