Why salons cannot whiten teeth, and what they can legally sell instead

By Daniel Smith, Founder, Pure Glow Teeth Whitening

Most salon owners I speak to have the same understanding of teeth whitening: it is off limits, it is a dentist thing, move on. That is half right, and the half that is missing is worth actual money.

Here is the position properly, because it is more specific than the general fog around it suggests.

The rule is written around peroxide, not around whitening

Teeth whitening products are regulated as cosmetics, under the Cosmetic Products Enforcement Regulations 2013, and the restriction is pinned to hydrogen peroxide.

Below 0.1 per cent, a product is freely available. Anyone can buy it and anyone can sell it.

Between 0.1 and 6 per cent, the product can only be sold to dental practitioners, the first use in each cycle can only be carried out by a dental practitioner or under their direct supervision, and it cannot be used on under eighteens.

Above 6 per cent, it is banned for cosmetic use.

The bit that gets missed is that the threshold is about the chemical, not the outcome.

That is the bit most people have heard, in some form. The bit that gets missed is that the threshold is about the chemical, not the outcome. A product that contains no peroxide at all is not caught by that restriction, because there is nothing there for the restriction to bite on.

But there is a second rule, and it does not go away

This is where I want to be careful, because the internet is full of people telling salons the opposite and some of them are selling training courses.

Tooth whitening is the practice of dentistry. That was settled by the High Court in General Dental Council v Jamous in 2013. The defendant had completed a one day whitening course at a beauty school and held a certificate for it. The court held that a treatment usually carried out by dentists falls inside the Dentists Act 1984 whether or not other people are also doing it, and that a certificate from a short course counts for nothing. Practising dentistry unregistered is a criminal offence and the GDC prosecutes it.

So the honest summary is two sentences, and they pull in different directions.

You cannot perform teeth whitening on a client.

You cannot perform teeth whitening on a client. It does not matter what strength the product is, whether it contains peroxide, or what certificate is on the wall.

You can sell a peroxide free whitening product over the counter, because selling a cosmetic is not practising dentistry.

What that actually means for a salon

It means whitening is not a treatment category for you. It is a retail category.

That distinction is not a consolation prize. Treatment revenue comes with chair time, training, insurance questions and, in this case, legal exposure. Retail revenue comes with none of those. It is a box on a shelf. The client takes it home and uses it themselves, which is also the only lawful way for them to use it outside a dental practice.

And it is a category your clients are already buying, just not from you. They are buying it online, from sellers who often ship from outside the UK, where the concentration printed on the box may bear no relationship to what is inside it. The version of this sitting behind your till would at least be one you had checked.

Two practical points if you do look at it. Check the ingredient declaration rather than the front of the pack, because “peroxide free” is sometimes attached to products containing carbamide peroxide, which releases hydrogen peroxide once it meets saliva. And check that a UK responsible person is named, because that is who carries the legal accountability for the product being what it says it is.

Where we come into it

I should declare the obvious interest. I make one of these.

I started Pure Glow after being let down by the category from the other side of the counter. The peroxide strips I tried caused enough sensitivity to stop me. The peroxide free ones I moved to slid out of position and whitened patchily, left gel residue I had to brush off, and tasted of chemicals. I spent about ten months with a manufacturer fixing each of those, and the result is a dry fit strip that holds position, comes off clean, and does up to six shades over fourteen days depending on where you start.

But the point of this piece is not the product. It is that a category most salons have written off entirely is open to them, in a narrower form than they might like, and with a line down the middle that is worth knowing exactly where it sits.

Sell it. Do not perform it.

Sell it. Do not perform it.

For more information visit pureglowteethwhitening.com.

Author bio

Daniel Smith is the founder of Pure Glow Teeth Whitening (pureglowteethwhitening.com), a UK brand based in Coventry making peroxide free PAP whitening strips. He spent fifteen years at Jaguar Land Rover, including as a health and safety representative, before developing the product.