I have finally finished, had my attachments off yesterday and moulds taken for the retainers - I am now sitting here with nothing on my teeth and they are nice and bright as I had them whitened straight after as well!
I just wanted to share my experience as I generally did not follow any of the "rules"......I may have been lucky and I'm not saying everyone will be the same, but here goes:
I had 18 upper and lower trays to begin with, then in December last year I said I wasn't happy with the result on the bottom and I got a further 7 trays, again upper and lower. For the first couple of trays I followed everything I had been told religiously - must have had them in for 23 hours a day, brushed my teeth before putting them back in, didn't drink anything except water when they were in, etc etc.......
I soon got bored of this and over the following few months I got to the point where I hardly did anything I "should" have done. I have quite a good social life and usually go out Thursdays and Fridays plus over the weekend. I always put the new trays in on a Monday night so I could have a couple of good days where I wore them all the time, when the movement tends to occur. After those first couple of days on each new tray, I'd be lucky if they were in for 14 hours a day. I didn't like wearing them when I went out drinking (mainly because I was very conscious of the attachments, and I had only told 2 friends what I was having done) so I'd take them out and leave them out all evening.
I drank tea, red and white wine (at home), fruit juices, you name it, I drank it when I was wearing them. I would occasionally eat with them in but only soft stuff that I didn't have to crunch or chew. I never brushed and flossed during the day, only in the morning and at night as normal.
I started seeing someone new at Christmas and didn't tell him about the aligners (mainly because I wanted to see if he would notice the attachments etc - he didn't so I then just kept it quiet!). So whenever I was with him I'd take them out, over the weekends my hours wearing them went down to maybe 8 or 9 which is when I put them in when I went to bed! We went on a 2 week holiday a month ago, just as I was starting my last 2 sets of trays, and I didn't once wear them during the day.
My teeth have turned out just as I wanted them and I'm so happy with the results. As I said above, this might not be the case for everyone but I just wanted to post this as a lot of people seem to get so hung up on sticking to the rules.......
...Had it bleached from inside but the result isn't what i would've liked it to be 
(perhapse composite bonding or veneer ??) will see what my dentist suggests..
