Tartar is removed from teeth by a dental professional using specialized instruments that physically scrape or vibrate hardened deposits off tooth surfaces. You cannot safely remove tartar at home once it has formed. Unlike soft plaque, which brushing and flossing can handle, tartar is a mineralized deposit made up of roughly 34% calcium and 19% phosphorus. It bonds to enamel and root surfaces so firmly that only professional tools can detach it without damaging your teeth.
Why Tartar Can’t Be Brushed Away
Tartar starts as plaque, the sticky bacterial film that forms on your teeth throughout the day. If plaque isn’t removed, minerals in your saliva begin crystallizing it into a hard deposit. This process can begin within 24 hours of plaque forming and typically reaches 60% to 90% of full mineralization within about 12 days. Once that transformation happens, the deposit is essentially rock fused to your tooth. No amount of brushing, flossing, or mouthwash will break it loose.
What Happens During a Professional Cleaning
A standard dental cleaning (called scaling) targets tartar above the gumline. Your hygienist works tooth by tooth using one of two types of instruments, or both.
Hand scalers are thin metal tools with a sharp, curved tip. The hygienist positions the edge against the tartar deposit and uses controlled force to pry it off the tooth surface. Different blade shapes are designed for different areas of the mouth, including curved instruments called curettes that can reach below the gumline and along root surfaces.
Ultrasonic scalers use a vibrating metal tip powered by high-frequency oscillations. The rapid vibration breaks the bond between tartar and tooth, while a stream of water flushes away the debris. These tools are especially useful for reaching deep pockets around the teeth and hard-to-access areas between roots, where hand instruments can be difficult to maneuver.
In terms of effectiveness, both approaches produce equivalent results. A meta-analysis in Cureus comparing ultrasonic and hand instruments in patients with gum disease found no significant difference in outcomes six months after treatment. Dentists often use both during the same appointment, switching between them depending on the location and stubbornness of the deposit.
Tartar Above vs. Below the Gumline
Tartar that forms above the gumline (supragingival) is the yellowish or brownish buildup you can sometimes see or feel with your tongue, often concentrated behind your lower front teeth. Removing it is relatively straightforward because the hygienist can see exactly what they’re working on.
Tartar below the gumline (subgingival) is a different challenge. It forms on root surfaces inside the pocket between your tooth and gum tissue, where it’s invisible and harder to reach. Clinicians often have to rely on touch rather than sight, feeling along root surfaces with an instrument tip to detect rough spots that indicate remaining deposits. The drawback of working by feel is that some tartar can be missed, or healthy root surface can be inadvertently scraped away.
Deep Cleaning: Scaling and Root Planing
If tartar has built up significantly below the gumline and you have signs of gum disease, your dentist may recommend a deep cleaning rather than a standard one. This two-part procedure, called scaling and root planing, is more involved.
First, your gums are numbed with local anesthesia. Then the hygienist or dentist scales away all tartar deposits from both above and below the gumline. The second step, root planing, involves smoothing the exposed root surfaces. Rough roots give bacteria more places to cling, so planing helps your gum tissue reattach more snugly to the tooth. In some cases, your provider may also place antibiotics directly around the treated roots to help control infection.
Deep cleanings are sometimes done in two visits, treating one half of the mouth at a time, especially when there is extensive buildup.
What Recovery Feels Like
After a routine cleaning, your teeth may feel sensitive for a few hours to a couple of days. This happens because removing tartar exposes areas of the tooth surface, particularly near the gumline, that were previously shielded by the deposit. Those freshly uncovered areas react more strongly to hot, cold, and pressure until your mouth adjusts.
If you had a deep cleaning, sensitivity and mild soreness in the gums can last a bit longer, especially if your gums were already inflamed or receded before the procedure. This typically improves on its own. People who hadn’t had a cleaning in a while tend to notice more sensitivity because there’s more buildup to remove and more previously covered surface suddenly exposed.
Why Home Scraping Tools Are Risky
Dental scalers marketed for home use might look simple, but using them without training creates real problems. You can scratch your enamel, which leads to lasting tooth sensitivity. You can cut or puncture your gum tissue, and gum trauma can cause recession that exposes sensitive roots permanently. Perhaps most concerning, you can accidentally push tartar fragments underneath the gumline, where they become trapped and can trigger gum infections or abscesses. Dental hygienists train for years to use these instruments at the correct angle and pressure. Without that skill, you’re more likely to cause damage than to accomplish anything useful.
Preventing Tartar From Forming
Since tartar is mineralized plaque, the strategy is simple in theory: remove plaque before it hardens. Brushing twice a day and flossing daily disrupts the bacterial film before minerals from your saliva can crystallize it. Tartar-control toothpastes can also help. These typically contain pyrophosphates, compounds that interfere with the chemical process that converts soft plaque into hard calcite. Specifically, pyrophosphates block the transformation of calcium phosphate into the crystalline mineral that makes up tartar.
Even with excellent home care, some tartar formation is almost inevitable, particularly in spots that are hard to reach with a toothbrush, like the inside surfaces of your lower front teeth and the outer surfaces of your upper molars near the salivary glands. That’s why regular professional cleanings matter. How often you need them depends on your individual risk: some people do well with annual visits, while others with faster tartar buildup or a history of gum disease benefit from cleanings every three to four months. The American Dental Association notes there’s no single ideal interval and recommends that your schedule be tailored based on your own risk factors.