Dental Articles

Celebrity Trend Setting

When it comes to celebrity trend-setting, just one name comes to mind: Mr. Regis Philbin. First it was the monochromatic, metallic shirt-and-tie look. And now, the teeth.

"It was a shock at the beginning," agrees Dr. Nicholas C. Davis, a dentist and president-elect of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. "But everybody has grown accustomed to it now; that's what they want. My patients come to me and say, 'I want the whitest teeth you've ever given anybody.'"

But how white is too white? And at what point does a smile become literally blinding?

As a general rule, your teeth should not be whiter than the whites of your eyes. But the problem is that the whitening craze, like most, started in California -- and that everyone wears sunglasses there.

The number of people bleaching their teeth has jumped 300 percent in the last five years, according to the AACD. And as usual, the Baby Boomers are to blame. "As they're aging, more people want to look good, look younger," says Dr. Kimberly Harms, an American Dental Association consumer advisor. They do not want to look as though they've frittered away their lives sucking on cigarettes and guzzling coffee.

"We see the programs on TV with people being made over, and we learn that one of the least expensive and most effective things you can do is bleach your teeth," Harms says. "White teeth are sort of a symbol of health."

"Folks want Hollywood smiles," says Bruce Fleming, CEO and director of BriteSmile, which supplies dentists with whitening products.

"It's a simple way for people to feel good about themselves," Fleming says. "I get calls every day from dentists who can't believe that a patient hugged them."

And Davis says that not all celebrities have gone too far. "Jessica Simpson," he says. "She's got a nice shade to her teeth, and they appear all natural and youthful. Ideally, you want to have some translucency in the teeth, some gradation of color. It should vary from the gumline, which would be slightly darker, to the chewing edge, which would be light. It has to do with the thickness of the enamel."

All the experts recommend letting a dentist supervise your bleaching -- even if you only tell him about your at-home efforts at your regular cleanings.