How to clean your Invisalign aligners

Keeping your Invisalign aligners clean is essential to their continued durability and appearance. A build-up of food debris, saliva, or plaque can result in your aligners becoming discoloured or even cracking, so it’s vital you understand how to keep them clean. We’re going to share with you some of our top tips on how to clean your Invisalign trays.

Cleaning your Invisalign: the basics

The best method for cleaning your Invisalign braces is to soak them in a denture cleaner or Invisalign cleaning crystals. They’ll need a bit more attention than this, so buy yourself or set aside a soft-bristled toothbrush solely for the purpose of lightly scrubbing your aligners. Soak them and brush them once a day to remove any dried saliva and food particles that might compromise their plastic or taint your breath. We’d advise you do this in the morning when you wake up before you have breakfast, because you need to clean them at this point anyway.

Morning care

You should be wearing your Invisalign aligners at night, because they need to be worn for 20-22 hours in order to keep you on track for great results. Take them out when you wake up and soak them in their cleaning solution as detailed above, and whilst they are soaking you can clean your teeth. Don’t replace your Invisalign in your mouth until you’ve cleaned and brushed your teeth after eating breakfast, otherwise you risk incubating food particles against your teeth in the warm and wet environment that bacteria love. Soak, breakfast, brush, replace!

Regular rinses

Rinse your Invisalign aligners regularly to stop saliva drying to the plastic and causing a foul smell or cracking. One of the many benefits of Invisalign aligners is that you can remove them for eating and social occasions, but when you do remove them always give them a rinse in clean cold water. Store them in a case that helps to keep them clean, then rinse them again before putting them back in.

Don’t wear them to eat or drink

Because Invisalign aligners are removable, you can take them out to eat whatever you want, successfully side-stepping the limited braces diet. With them being removable, its vital you take them out to eat and drink. They aren’t equipped to deal with the constant pressures of biting and chewing, and they could crack or break under this kind of tension. Plus, foods and drinks like tea and coffee could very easily stain your aligners as they would your teeth, so you risk discolouration of the trays. Drinking water is fine, but anything else and you will need to remove your Invisalign trays.

Always clean your teeth after wearing them

When you do remove your Invisalign aligners for drinks, snacks, and meals, make sure you brush your teeth before replacing your Invisalign in your mouth again. Otherwise, you will be incubating food particles and sugars and introducing bacteria to your teeth. This will lead to enamel breakdown and a heightened risk of gum disease, so make sure you clean your teeth first before wearing Invisalign aligners after a meal!

Invisalign braces in Farringdon

If you’re considering Invisalign braces in Farringdon, get in touch with a member of the team at Zero Seven Dental Practice today on 020 7253 7667 and book your initial consultation!