Dental bleach South Africa (Milton)

Dr Clark encourages us to use ‘dental bleach’. Since we can’t obtain this in South Africa, we mix our own for dental work:

The only USP/BP grade available in South Africa that we know of, is Milton. You can obtain this from any pharmacy or grocery store (in the baby section, as it is used to sterilise nappies).

How to use Milton sterilising fluid:
Milton is a USP grade solution containing 1% Sodium Hypochlorite and 16.5% Sodium Chloride.
Milton can be found at Dischem, Clicks, Pick ‘n Pay and most pharmacies in the baby sections, in a blue plastic bottle with a white lid.
This concentrate maintains stability by creating a pH of 10 (or higher) and is stabile for a period of 23 months if kept closed and out of light in its original container.
As soon as Milton is mixed with water in order to dilute it, it is only stabile for 24 hours.
We only need a 0.05% solution to make dental bleach, as per Dr Clark’s instructions (the hypochlorite concentrate she uses in her book is different, so our directions for mixing are different).
We need to mix 1 part of Milton with 20 parts of distilled water to get a 0.05% solution.
That means 5ml of Milton’s into every 100ml of water.
The best way to accomplish this is to buy two 1 liter bottles of distilled water which come in the required HDPE 2 plastic containers (just look on the bottom to find the HDPE underneath a triangle with a 2 in it). They are the opaque coloured plastic bottles and milk usually comes in them too.
Distilled water is found at Dischem or other pharmacies, but the plastic bottle it comes in must be HDPE 2.
Empty the distilled water out of one plastic bottle so you can use as a mixing container.
Then add 100ml of distilled water back into the empty bottle first. To this add 5 ml of Milton’s to make a 0.05% solution.
Always add bleach to water instead of water to bleach, and use a plastic spoon/measurer (no metals).
If you want to make more, measure:

• 200ml of water and add 10ml of Milton, or
• 250ml of water and add 12.5ml of Milton (The Milton lid has a measured line for 12.5ml         making this measurement convenient)
• 300ml of water and add 15ml Milton, or
• 500ml of water and add 25ml Milton – always adding the bleach to the water. (The Milton lid also has a measured line for 25ml making this measurement convenient)

This will now be a 0.05% solution which we’ll call dental bleach 0.05%.
Put the dental bleach into a glass amber bottle to keep the light out and keep the cap on tight
NB: THIS MIXTURE IS ONLY STABILE FOR 24 HOURS AND MUST BE MADE FRESHLY EVERYDAY.