Are healthy teeth always white?

The underlying colour of our teeth is determined during tooth formation and is, like hair or skin colour, very individual and not the same for everyone. Whilst some people have teeth that appear to be really quite bright when they first erupt, in others of the same age they appear to already be somewhat ‘yellow’. The reason lies in the structure of the tooth: the naturally incorporated colour pigmentation determines the underlying colour and varies between people. The less colour pigmentation a tooth has, the brighter it appears to the observer.

However it is also true that no tooth is really white at the start, because the tooth always has ‘warm’ colour components to a greater or lesser extent. And with increasing age the tooth structure also changes from within, causing our teeth to change to a more yellow and/or grey colour through no fault of our own.

Left: When looking at incisors in transmitted light, the colour pigments embedded in the tooth structure can easily be seen.

Right: A transverse cut across an incisor reveals how colour deposits caused by consumption and age affect the brightness of the tooth.