Once tartar has hardened onto your teeth, you cannot remove it at home. Plaque, the soft sticky film that forms daily, mineralizes into tartar (also called calculus) within about 24 to 72 hours if it isn’t brushed away. After that hardening process, no amount of brushing, scraping, or rinsing will break it off safely. A dental professional is the only person who should remove tartar. But there’s a lot you can do to prevent new tartar from forming and to understand what happens during a professional cleaning.
Why Home Removal Is Risky
You can buy dental scalers online, and plenty of social media videos show people scraping tartar off their own teeth. This is a bad idea for several reasons. Dental scalers are sharp, specialized instruments that require training to use safely. Without that training, you risk scratching your tooth enamel, which causes permanent sensitivity. You can also cut your gums, cheeks, or tongue, and damaged gum tissue can recede, exposing the sensitive roots of your teeth.
Perhaps the biggest risk is one you wouldn’t expect: you can accidentally push tartar beneath the gumline. When that happens, bacteria get trapped in a place you can’t reach, potentially causing gum abscesses or accelerating gum disease. Infections from non-sterile tools are another concern. The money saved by skipping a dental visit isn’t worth the potential damage.
What Happens During Professional Removal
A standard professional cleaning removes tartar from above the gumline and is usually painless. Your hygienist uses either hand scalers (small curved metal instruments) or ultrasonic tools that vibrate rapidly to break tartar loose while spraying water to flush debris away. Most routine cleanings take 30 to 60 minutes.
If tartar has built up below the gumline and you’re showing signs of gum disease, your dentist may recommend a deeper procedure called scaling and root planing. For this, you’ll receive local anesthesia to numb your gums. The hygienist then scales plaque and tartar from both above and below the gumline, then smooths (planes) the tooth roots so gum tissue can reattach more easily. This is typically done in two visits, treating one side of the mouth at a time. You may have some soreness and sensitivity for a few days afterward.
How Often You Need a Cleaning
The old “every six months” guideline is a reasonable starting point, but the American Dental Association notes there’s no one-size-fits-all interval supported by strong evidence. What works better is a schedule tailored to your individual risk. If you build up tartar quickly, smoke, have diabetes, or have a history of gum disease, your dentist may recommend cleanings every three to four months. If your oral health is stable and tartar buildup is minimal, once or twice a year may be enough. Ask your dentist what interval makes sense for you based on what they see in your mouth.
Preventing New Tartar From Forming
Since tartar starts as plaque, the goal is to remove plaque before it hardens. Brushing twice a day for two full minutes is the foundation. Pay extra attention to the backs of your lower front teeth and the outer surfaces of your upper molars, which are the spots closest to salivary glands and where tartar tends to accumulate fastest.
An electric toothbrush with an oscillating-rotating head gives you a measurable edge. A large Cochrane review found that electric toothbrushes achieved about 21% greater plaque reduction and 11% greater gingivitis reduction compared with manual brushing over periods longer than three months. You can absolutely keep your teeth clean with a manual brush and good technique, but if tartar is a recurring problem for you, switching to electric is one of the simplest upgrades you can make.
Flossing daily matters because your toothbrush, manual or electric, simply cannot reach the tight spaces between teeth. Plaque that sits undisturbed between teeth hardens into tartar just like plaque anywhere else, and interproximal tartar is a major driver of gum disease.
Tartar-Control Toothpaste
Toothpastes labeled “tartar control” contain active ingredients that slow the mineralization of plaque into calcite crystite. The most effective formulations use pyrophosphates combined with a copolymer. A systematic review of 27 studies found that all tartar-control ingredients produced significant reductions in calculus, but the combination of pyrophosphates with copolymer produced the largest effect at three months. Over six months, the benefit grew even stronger. These toothpastes won’t remove existing tartar, but they meaningfully slow the rate at which new tartar forms between cleanings.
Mouthwash as a Supplement
Certain mouthwashes contain ingredients that help control tartar formation. Zinc compounds (like zinc citrate or zinc chloride) work by modifying or inhibiting the growth of calcium phosphate crystals, which are the mineral building blocks of tartar. Stannous fluoride rinses reduce calculus by directly inhibiting the creation of those same calcium phosphate compounds. Pyrophosphate-based rinses act as chelating agents, binding to calcium ions so they can’t deposit onto plaque. Look for these ingredients on the label if tartar control is your goal. Mouthwash is a supplement to brushing and flossing, not a replacement.
Why Tartar Matters Beyond Appearance
Tartar isn’t just a cosmetic issue. Its rough, porous surface gives bacteria an ideal place to cling and multiply, right against your gums. The early result is gingivitis: red, swollen, bleeding gums. At this stage, the damage is reversible with better cleaning and a professional scaling.
Left in place, tartar and its bacterial colonies push deeper below the gumline, forming periodontal pockets. As these pockets deepen past 3 millimeters, anaerobic bacteria thrive and trigger a strong inflammatory response from your immune system. Your body sends inflammatory signals to fight the infection, but those same signals break down the connective tissue and bone holding your teeth in place. This is periodontitis, and unlike gingivitis, the bone loss it causes is irreversible. In advanced stages, bone loss can exceed 60% of the root length, at which point teeth loosen and may be lost entirely.
The progression from tartar to tooth loss isn’t inevitable, and it doesn’t happen overnight. But it is the reason tartar removal matters. Keeping plaque from hardening and getting professional cleanings on a schedule appropriate for your risk level are the two most effective things you can do to protect your teeth long-term.