Yahoo! Life has a new story with analysis of something that has bothered me for a while – noticeable veneers on social media personalities and celebrities. This has been happening for years, and it seems like a bigger issue now that influencers are getting bad veneers. I’ll go to watch a video and get distracted by the YouTuber’s teeth. (I love watching YouTubers break down TikTok drama, like about the dating influencer who broke all her own rules to quickly marry a Brazilian personal trainer who seems controlling and like he can’t stand her. That link in the previous sentence is NOT to the video that distracted me, I don’t want to call the person out like that.)
Not only are some veneers too white and uniform, I’ve noticed people with veneers often have a mild lisp when they speak. This happened to a friend of mine who got veneers. She started clicking her teeth and lisping. This begs the question – why would someone who talks or sings for a living trade aesthetics for something that could jeopardize their work? It’s all in the pursuit of perfection, but not too much perfection or they get that horsey Chiclet mouth. Here’s part of Yahoo!’s analysis, with more at the source.
JoJo Siwa’s were called “terrifying.” Jackson Olson’s were so bright that some Dancing With the Stars viewers said they were driven to distraction. Miley Cyrus’s were called the “horsiest” set a commenter had ever seen. Some fans say they long for Taylor Swift’s original.
The issue at hand: veneers.
Online, some pop culture obsessives (and dentists) have made a blood sport of critiquing celebrity teeth. A few decades ago, it was having crooked or yellowing teeth that was considered a badge of shame. Now, the problem is with smiles that are too uniform, too gleaming, too perfect…
What counts as an attractive smile varies across cultures and social groups. But Hollywood helped make one version — straight, white, uniform teeth — most recognizable, says Quiñonez. And as social media brought those celebrity smiles even closer, so did the possibility of getting a perfect one yourself. You no longer had to be famous to aspire to famous-person teeth.
Dr. Natalie Pennington, a cosmetic and restorative dentist in San Antonio, sees those aspirations in her office as patients bring in celebrity reference photos and even pictures of influencers. At one point, it was Julia Roberts’s smile that they wanted. Now, they ask for Margot Robbie’s, right down to her slightly pointed canines.
Lately, patients have another request: wanting the brightness without the “keyboard, very staccato Chiclet look,” she says. “Higher-end cosmetic dentistry is definitely tailored toward making it look more effortless and more natural.”
That’s a fairly specific assignment: Improve the teeth, preserve the individuality and make the improvement difficult to detect.
It seems like veneers and improvements to teeth are similar to plastic surgery and injectables. We only notice the bad work and when someone goes overboard with it. When the work is subtle we assume it’s natural. I asked my old school dentist what he thought about veneers. He hates them and explained to me that the natural teeth have to be filed down and are ruined. He also recommended that I get braces – for the second time, I had them as a teenager – before my teeth shift more. I’m probably going to pass on braces. Not only because braces are expensive as hell, but because I like my mildly crooked teeth.
Photos credit: IMAGO/AdMedia / MediaPunch/Avalon, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
Michelle Pfieffer recently got some and it, too, was driving me to distraction. Especially since her natural teeth lent her face so much character.
I could never imagine destroying my natural teeth for fake ones.
My dentist and I were chatting about veneers (just to chat, I am not in the market!), and the process sounds absolutely BRUTAL. People need to keep their own teeth (and hair, and noses, and chins, etc). Variety is the spice of life.
The older guy on the Trivago commercials teeth are so distracting I can’t watch the commercials. All I see are his teeth.
I googled the Trivago guy too because his teeth are so distracting. He swears they’re all natural.
Natural, ha! They’re so big they make it difficult to understand what he’s saying.
The reason I even got into celebrity gossip websites in the first place was because all the way back around 2005, I Googled “Why do Hillary Duff’s teeth look different?” She had gotten veneers that were too big for her.
I love the Danielle Walter drama! Cover that hilarity anytime!
Yeah I always think of Dennis The Menace when I see these bad veneers. Hilary Duff is the first celeb I remember ruining her look with them. At least she can close her mouth. I watch football, and JJ Watt has gotten them recently. He now commentates with a lisp he never had before. It’s wild.
Two very close friends have veneers. One got her first set in her mid 20s and is on her second set and refuses to believe that those can’t be replaced yet another time. A very honest dentist explained to me that you can only do so many procedures to teeth before they die and have to be removed. He made me promise to ONLY do the necessary things and to keep my natural teeth as long as possible. The other friend regrets her veneers every day of her life as she has had expensive and painful procedures in her mouth ever since.
I watch a ton of British panel shows and love seeing so many people with their real teeth. And that those who have gotten veneers (and cosmetic surgeries) get a lot of guff for it – although most of them are pretty open about it and good sports. I can hardly watch IASIP any more because the most of the actors have gone wild with the updates.
Lol I know you’re talking about Jimmy Carr and Katherine Ryan! I do like that they have a sense of humor about it. Jimmy has always been a good sport I think. That episode after his tax scandal is just about the best half hour of ball busting around, and he just took it on the chin.
I am in the dental industry and this trend is driving me absolutely bonkers. First, you are destroying your own, perfectly fine, teeth, for a set of toilet-bowl white piece of ceramic. Second, it’s scary how many dentists have no clue what they are doing. Dentistry is more than just aesthetics. Your jaw has a function. You teeth have a function. When you prioritize aesthetics over functionality, you not only end up with unnatural looking teeth, but you can also end up with lifelong, chronic issues and pain. I am all for people fixing their teeth, if they need to be fixed, but most of us don’t need this. I miss real faces. I miss wrinkles. I miss normal lips. I miss individuals looking unique and not like clones of each other.
I remember what a dentist once said: If your teeth are whiter than your eyes, it is distracting. If you decide to whiten your teeth, she recommended asking your dentist to match the whites of your eyes.
FYI: This was the makeup artist Lisa Eldridge’s dentist. Lisa was interviewing her while she did her make-up.
Many of those front teeth look like the natural ones Aimee Lou Wood got a lot of sh!t for.
I watch DWTS and knew nothing about Jackson Olson – except that he couldn’t physically close his lips around his teeth. Hugely distracting.
I have a cap on one of my front teeth because I fell off my bike onto my face in middle school. Dealing with replacing the cap every 5-10 years has been an expensive pain in the ass. Personally, I can’t imagine choosing to do that to all of my teeth. Ugh.
It’s not just cosmetic, getting your teeth “fixed” is usually the first thing you do if you grew up poor and suddenly have money. It was true for athletes, musicians, actors, and now influencers, too.
The problem is, at least in my understanding, you can’t go back to your “old” smile once you’ve gotten veneers. They basically file your teeth down into little nubs. You’re signing up for something that is made of inferior material (compared to tooth enamel) and will need to be replaced several times in your lifetime. Not to mention the upkeep!
Solidarity on being perfectly happy with your imperfect teeth! Mine are a bit jagged and some are oddly shaped, but I’ve always refused to do anything to correct them. Honestly, the initial reason was that I was terrified of the dentist after a bad experience when I was very young, and I think I only went maybe 3 times between the ages of 6 and 18. On one of those visits, the dentist was really pushy about me needing braces, to the point of being insulting and sexist — he literally told me that boys wouldn’t want to date me because of my teeth! — so that just reinforced my avoidance and ironically made me even more stubborn about not fixing them (to be clear, this is not to say that I let my teeth get nasty! I was and am more obsessive about oral hygiene than anyone I know, so they’re very healthy and as white as can be without bleaching). I was definitely self-conscious about it when I was younger, but I came to appreciate that my imperfect teeth added character to my face, and I’m so glad that I never fixed what wasn’t really broken. And that one dentist can f–k off, because my smile has actually been the #1 thing that guys have complimented me on (and I’m a 32DD, so that’s saying something, lol).
This is a big reason why BritBox is my go to for watching TV. I love that British actors look like PEOPLE. Not like they’ve been cloned in some play dough factory. I often wonder if it’s Scientology cult control in Hollywood to try and get everyone to look the same.
My theory is that they are getting them done oversized because our mouths and lips tend to collapse as we age. Big teeth help keep mouth wrinkles at bay?
Influencers with bad veneers, botoxed smile lines, and lips full of fillers look so absurd. I found one lady I used to follow years ago, and I could not believe it. She could hardly even TALK it was all so unnatural. It’s like she had a stroke or something.
I know of a few low-level UK celebs who have gotten free veneers in return for promotional posts & videos. Of course, they look far too white and unnatural!
Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman. Although Nicole seems to have better/new ones now. They totally change the shape of their faces. Removes uniqueness.