Perhaps the greatest trend in dental care right now is teeth whitening. There are a number of ways to get whiter teeth. Abrasives are often used to remove stains from the teeth, but they may also remove enamel. New toothpaste containing an ingredient called prophy silica is recommended by dentists for a polish and clean teeth. This is not proper prophy-silica paste but it is marketed as a dentist type of cleaning paste or as a novel silica whitening toothpaste containing blue covarine. Purified silica, substantially free from metal ions is used as an abrasive, but silica as an abrasive grinds the surface of teeth in a simple physical manner to make it white and sleek. However, repeated grinding may result in excessive abrasion of teeth, causing cervical abrasion. To solve such a problem Sokolov and Gaikwad of Clarkson's Nanoengineering and Biotechnology Laboratories Center have showed that teeth can be polished by making use of nanomaterials that will make the removal of bacteria responsible for the destruction of dental enamel to be very easy before they cause damage to the enamel. The researchers feel that such polishing may protect tooth surfaces against the damage caused by cariogenic bacteria as well because the bacteria can be removed easily from such polished surfaces.