Beach Bum Tanning, with 17 locations in N.J., offers teeth whitening kits to customers and 15 minute light sessions
Tina Richards, of Trenton, has her teeth professionally whitened by a dentist in a 2004 photo. For the past three years, Beach Bum Tanning has been offering its clients another way to accentuate that golden glow: teeth whitening.
But a group of New Jersey dentists isn’t smiling.
The issue of teeth whitening — and who has the right to offer it — is at the center of a recent lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Dental Association against Beach Bum Tanning, an East Coast chain with 17 locations across the state, half of which offer the service.
The trade association, which represents about 4,700 dentists, doesn’t take issue with the fact that many consumers now use over-the-counter whitening kits. But when it comes to professional teeth whitening, the group says, leave it to the licensed professionals.
At the heart of the lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court in Middlesex County in July, is a state law that defines a practicing dentist, in part, as someone who offers or attempts to "diagnose, treat or remove stains or concretions from human teeth."
That means that anyone else taking part in the stain removal business is essentially doing so illegally, said Arthur Meisel, the attorney representing the dental association.
"It’s pretty straightforward. It’s an unfair and dishonest competitive practice based on the law governing dentistry," he said Monday. "Ultimately, it could hurt the consumer."
For the record, the New Jersey State Board of Dentistry, which determines the rules and regulations for the industry, confirmed Monday that the practice of dentistry includes professional teeth whitening, but it declined to comment further on the lawsuit.
But Beach Bum CEO James Oliver said the chain doesn’t administer the service — it simply sells the product. Customers who purchase a teeth whitening kit have the option of taking it home or using a room equipped with a chair and blue light. The chain offers a 15-minute session that can whiten teeth by up to four or five shades for $69, much cheaper than the hundreds of dollars it would cost at a dentist’s office, he said.
"Basically, you’re paying for the light and the product," Oliver said. "We don’t put our hands inside your mouth. We don’t claim we’re dentists."
That argument, however, did little to help one Alabama hair salon last year, when a state supreme court there ruled it had illegally practiced dentistry by selling teeth whitening products, even though these products were largely self-administered by the customer.
The teeth whitening debate has also sprung up in some other states, where it has become commonplace for salons, retail stores and mall kiosks to offer the service.
In June, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against the North Carolina Dental Board for trying to block non-dentists from performing teeth whitening procedures, calling it a conspiracy to "thwart competition." By doing so, consumers were forced to seek whitening from dentists, who typically charge between $300 to $700 per session, compared to the $100 to $150 offered by non-dentist businesses, the FTC said.
An spokesman for the FTC said Monday it was aware of teeth whitening issues elsewhere, but that North Carolina is the only state it has sued. He declined to comment on investigations in other states.
The American Dental Association, recognizing that teeth whitening has become popular in recent years, acknowledges growing concerns about the safety of the process. Because the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t see teeth whitening products as a drug, there is no designated safe amount. Dentist offices generally use products with hydrogen peroxide concentrations of 25 to 38 percent, while at-home kits usually range from 3 to 7.5 percent, the ADA said.
At Beach Bum, which buys its kits from an Atlanta-based company called Whiter Image, the concentration is about 9 percent — slightly higher than the average for take-home kits.
Ultimately, that kind of concentration is not high enough to do real damage to a user, but there are other cons to choosing a salon over a dentist, said Matthew Messina, a consumer advisor for the ADA and a dentist.
"If they have cavities, they could end up with screaming toothaches when they’re done," he said.