Celebrity Teeth: Why Does Everyone in Hollywood Have Veneers?

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | November 28, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | November 28, 2023 |

As a kid, I wore a retainer for a few years because I had a serious overbite. I still do, although I can no longer stick my entire thumb behind the gap between the top and bottom row when I bite down. Everyone I knew seemed to have a retainer or train track braces. I get a lot of targeted ads for Invisalign and tooth whitening kits, and to this day, even though I’m content with my appearance, I’m still a tad paranoid about my teeth. I know they’re not “good teeth” by societal standards. Still, every time social media tries to pollute my timeline with videos of people getting veneers, I’m thankful to have the mouth that I do.

A veneer is a layer of material placed over a tooth, often to improve aesthetics and protect from damage. Invented in 1928, the procedure was initially used on actors during the first boom in Hollywood productions, and would later become popular among cosmetic dentistry. Nowadays, custom-made veneers are popular to entirely change one’s smile. They are cemented to the front of your existing teeth, which are often ground down to nubs to make room for the replacements. The procedure is often extremely expensive, with the per-tooth average in the UK reaching £500 - 1000 per tooth. Prices drop drastically in places like Türkiye, where it has become popular for Brits to travel abroad for the procedure.

Celebrities have been getting major dental transformations for years, from Tom Cruise to Kylie Jenner. Typically, this involved braces and hardcore whitening, but veneers were always part of the process for many. Nowadays, it’s just cheaper, more openly discussed, and more publicly demanded. This happens in large part because of what we see on celebrities. They are the first canvases of cosmetic trends that threaten to engulf us all. And it does seem as though veneers exploded in popularity over a short period of time. Well, that or they just become tough to overlook.

The idea of “perfect teeth” is a powerful image ingrained in our minds for decades, even centuries. With the growing advancement of dental care and cosmetic options being more accessible than ever, the standards for what are considered “bad teeth” have drastically increased. Are your teeth somewhat crooked? Do you have an overbite? Do some teeth overlap? Are they a colour other than blinding white? Are there gaps? All of the things that occur naturally are increasingly considered unacceptable, or even a sign of bad hygiene and ugliness. So, of course an industry that demands impossible beauty standards and commodifies ever aspect of the hunt for that “perfection” is big on veneers.

Veneers are like beacons that invite us to stare. While many cosmetic procedures come with plausible deniability - hey, they could have lost all that buccal fat naturally, right? - veneers often seem blatant. They’re too neat, too white, too large for one’s mouth. When someone smiles, you cannot look away. There’s an uncanny quality to veneers. They just look too perfect. Everyone has different ideas of beauty but I truly do not understand anyone who thinks these veneers look good. I’ve yet to see a set, even in the mouths of A-Listers with more money than sense, that didn’t scream “fake”. Teeth aren’t supposed to be like that, so when they gleam like untouched porcelain and line up to the millimetre, how can we not call foul? The most insidious aspect of these restricting beauty standards is how they demand homogeny for all, regardless of race, gender, size, or nature. Everyone gets the same work done, and with veneers, one would swear that everyone is being given an identical mould. There’s nothing natural or truly beautiful about it. Every face becomes an advert for getting veneers done, and it doesn’t take much for everyone else to start panicking that their perfectly normal, healthy, striking teeth are wrong.

Less commonly discussed with the veneers problem is how damaging they ultimately are to one’s health. Getting your teeth ground down, shockingly, can make you prone to infection. Remove your natural enamel and it won’t come back. You leave your nerves dangerously exposed, and that could end in root canals galore. A lot of people going to foreign countries for the procedure to save a few quid have reported issues in terms of pain and aesthetic, but it’s too late to fix it because now they’ve no real teeth left aside from stubs. Fillers can be dissolved. Breast implants can be removed. You can’t get your normal teeth back to their former state with veneers.

This procedure is partly designed to convey an image of health, but that’s not how teeth work. You can live a totally sin-free life and your teeth still won’t stay the colour of cotton sheets. It’s okay for them to turn yellow to some degree. That doesn’t mean you’re neglecting your self-care. Veneers feels like another way to shit on the majority of us for not being rich.

I don’t doubt that veneers are a trend. They’re, alas, like everything else in the world of beauty. 20 years ago, it seemed as though every famous woman was getting a boob job and now many of them have candidly discussed removing their implants and regretting following the crowd on a potentially lethal fad. BBLs are being removed, fillers are being dissolved. But they’re all replaced with a new trend, whether it’s buccal fat removal, jaw implants, or fox eye lifts. There will always be a new way to let the world know that we’re not good enough and need to spend exorbitant amounts of time, money, and emotional labour to fix the unbroken. It’s just a shame that a lot of people will be hurt during this blitz of veneer hype, including young people who already have to deal with the tyranny of Instagram Face and algorithms designed to inspire self-loathing. We’ll certainly hear a few horror stories in the coming years from veneer patients in pain and the Hollywood backlash. Until then, maybe stick to flossing and ignoring your targeted ads.