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RALEIGH — In early December, the Federal Trade Commission voted that the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners had stifled competition illegally by excluding non-dentists from providing teeth-whitening services or products to consumers.

The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners illegally thwarted competition by working to bar non-dentist providers of teeth whitening goods and services from selling their products to consumers, according to a unanimous Opinion and Final Order issued by the Federal Trade Commission

Consumers who were counting on a bright white smile for the holiday season may find it harder, and more expensive, than they thought.

Dentists in several states are trying to prohibit non-dentists - such as employees of tanning salons, hair salons and spas - from offering teeth whitening, claiming that non-dentists lack the expertise to safely perform the procedure. Coincidentally, dentists also tend to charge more - between $300 and $700 per treatment - than non-dentists, who typically offer the service for less than $100, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Dentists earn above-average wages because they possess highly specialized skills that most of us lack, and no one should begrudge them that. But dentists have also gotten quite canny at padding their earnings by enacting regulatory restrictions on the provision of tooth-related services by non-dentists even if the service in question doesn't actually require a dentist's specialized skills. According to the Food and Drug Administration, for example, tooth-whitening products are perfectly safe to sell over the counter and be applied at home by anyone who cares to do it. But in Connecticut the Connecticut Dental Commission has ruled that only dentists may provide tooth-whitening services as a business.

The contentious issue of teeth whitening in malls and spas has flared up in Connecticut, where a public interest law firm on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against members of the Connecticut State Dental Commission, contending that the commission illegally shut down small businesses that offered the procedure at lower prices than dental offices.

Arlington, Va. - What is the difference between whitening your teeth at home with a product you buy online and whitening your teeth at a shopping mall or salon with an identical product bought there? In Connecticut, the person who sold you the product at the mall or salon can be charged with a felony and sentenced to up to five years in jail or $25,000 in fines. But that might soon change thanks to a lawsuit filed today by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that litigates nationwide on behalf of entrepreneurs whose rights are being violated by the government.

Until recently, you could find Stephen Barraco's Smile Bright teeth whitening products in hair and nail salons, selling for a fraction of what you might pay in a dentist's office.

But now, Barraco's Branford-based business is limited to the Internet, and he's laid off his five employees --the result, he says, of a declaratory ruling by the Connecticut State Dental Commission that restricts who can whiten teeth.

A public interest law firm claims in a lawsuit to be filed Wednesday that Connecticut's dental regulators are illegally closing small businesses that offer teeth-whitening services because the entrepreneurs are diverting a lucrative revenue stream from licensed dentists.

Waitress Aimee Gharis faces the public constantly, but she used to be less than confident about her smile.

So when a local hair salon in Hamden, Conn., began offering teeth whitening for $99 - far less than dentists charge - she bit.

RALEIGH, N.C. -  A federal judge has determined that North Carolina's dental regulatory board cannot prevent non-dentists from providing teeth-whitening services.

Washington—Tooth bleaching is the practice of dentistry, Dr. Van B. Haywood testified March 9-10 at Federal Trade Commission hearings on tooth whitening services.

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