We no longer know what a real smile looks like?

When you glance around at the people in your work life, family, and group of friends, what kind of smiles do you notice? Are they yellowish, irregular, discolored, tiny, or perhaps large, even a combination of both? With pronounced incisors, vampire-like pointed canines, and the rest somewhat unconventional, the teeth of ordinary individuals are often charmingly intricate. Perhaps it's because we can no longer afford dental care, or maybe we've simply grown accustomed to it. However, sometimes this quirky irregularity, excluding potential health issues (which aren't the focus of this article), is what makes someone endearing, their smile something to be prompted with a joke or compliment and then admired. Yet, if you work with your smile, things change. Or, at least, that's what international stars seem to believe as they're all engrossed in the pursuit of aesthetic perfection, even if it means veering into the uncanny.

Dental Veneers: Transforming Smiles

Up until a few years ago, if you had asked me, I wouldn't have known what veneers were – the things that odontosalute.it describes as "ultra-thin prosthetics, with a thickness similar to contact lenses, applied to the external surface of teeth with the primary goal of enhancing the aesthetics of the smile." Now, I understand that to affix them (as they are permanent and require no special maintenance), a teeth filing is necessary, altering shape, color, length, and even position of the pre-existent teeth. Invented in Hollywood in the late '20s, gaining popularity in the '80s, and now ubiquitous, always shinier, larger, and more recognizable. Especially in the mouths of our favorite celebrities. Social media debates what they do to the faces of singers, actors, and entertainment personalities, and the implications of seeing these optical white and sparkling mouths, in some cases almost horsey, on our concept of a normal smile.

Celebrities Who Have Opted for Veneers

Let's proceed systematically. Who are the celebrities that have chosen to use veneers? Among the first to come to mind is undoubtedly Miley Cyrus. Then there's The Weeknd, Sam Claflin, Kate Hudson (who now flaunts a very different set of teeth from the adorable smile she had in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), Jojo Siwa, Hilary Duff, and Tom Cruise. As is often the case with aesthetic procedures, social media users enjoy critiquing them, commenting extensively on their size, color, and how artificial or natural they appear. The verdict is not always positive. Despite the gossip, more and more people take inspiration from them, requesting the same procedure. Veneers are in trend, and it could be a problem for our normal and natural smiles.

Is Pursuing the Perfect Smile Sensible?

Not so much a problem for each person's personal choice, which remains free, but because aesthetic procedures (especially permanent ones) should never be a trend, something blindly pursued just because seen on a red carpet, to collect. We should have learned long ago that stars should not be taken as examples for these kinds of things, in fact. They have different possibilities, different standards, different goals. The beauty ideals they uphold are unrealistic and frankly, hardly applicable to our lives, even causing complexes and problems and alienating us from a real body, a real mouth, a real smile, which by contrast will inevitably appear ugly. Do we really need another trendy procedure to add to the list after buccal fat removal and the Brazilian butt lift?

Embracing Our Imperfections

The truth, as often happens when the central theme is more or less invasive or obvious aesthetic procedures, is that it is crucial to remain grounded in reality, seeking results that harmonize with our faces rather than chasing perfect, which by definition appears fake, artificial, almost unsettling. In short, accepting our imperfections, learning to deal with them even without permanent procedures, perhaps bypassing the issue or compromising with ourselves and what is possible or impossible to change, liberates us. It frees us from others' judgment, from the pressure exerted by the beauty industry, providing new awareness of our priorities and who and how we truly want to be, imperfect teeth included.