I didn’t say the British were a race (although the term ‘race’ is sufficiently fuzzy that I would not have a problem doing so), I said it was a racist comment.
I’m an American and find the whitening bizarre.
My dentist keeps pushing me to let her whiten my teeth, but I am sure that - as she says - my teeth look like normal healthy teeth in their fifties.
The other day I saw a television commercial advertisement for some product that fixes the problem that whitening often doesn’t work well on the surfaces of the teeth that are facing each other. That is, the surfaces hidden between the teeth. The tone of the advertisement was forboding and a little threatening. It helped cement me into my view that all of this is obsessive and unhealthy.
I also find brilliantly white teeth, especially on people of my generation, odd looking like jet-black dyed hair.
I find it unnatural when they go up to many shades up on teeth. You can get your teeth whitened and pick the shade you want to go for. My hair salon is now offering teeth whitening for 50 dollars if you get it with a service. So while the color is developing you can have your teeth being whitened.
Braces are not just for looks, for some people they correct problems that can cause pain or problems with your teeth or jaw later in life. Crooked teeth can also be harder to clean in some cases which means you might get more cavities.
Exactly. I am in the process of upgrading my mouth. I’ve had braces on for 2 years now. Once they come off I’ll begin the process for implants and bridges and veneers.
I ended up losing a bunch of back teeth when I was younger due to lack of funds (exactly as Tamex stated - pulling was cheaper than a root canal), and eating certain foods with few back teeth would really hurt my gums. My dentist was also warning me about the possibility of all of the teeth shifting and getting loose with so much space. I’ll be happy that they will look better once it’s all said and done, but it didn’t start out cosmetic at all.
By the time everything is complete, I’m guessing I’ll have spent about $30,000 to $40,000 out of pocket.
This mouth better last me until I’m 100 years old.
Yes, and that is the main reason Dutch kids get braces. But Dutch dentist stop at a point where teeth are healty and servicable, while US dentists go for, well, perfection.
That’s another thing, the dental cleaning. As I posted in another thread, that is also not a regular thing in the Netherlands. Most Dutch people go for cavity control to their dentist once or twice a year, but cleaning isn’t standard at all.
One difference might be that here in the US, dentists advertise and push all of their services as “necessary”. Such as the ad for whitening where one mother tells another she got it done and the dentist worked with her budget even tho her credit is bad (:eek:), and another where a teen with a perfectly normal looking mouth is begging her mother for “cool braces” just like her friend, so the mother asks the friend’s mom where she got them and how she could afford them. The message seems to be that no matter how little money you have, you must get cosmetic work done and they will make it so you can (ha ha) afford it. Particularly that you must do it for your kids or you are a bad parent.
Not necessarily. When I was in my early teens or so, I had an overbite so bad that I was biting the roof of my mouth, and got braces to correct that. A few years after the braces came off, I noticed that some of my teeth had ended up crooked, and went back to the orthodontist to ask about fixing that, too. He said that he could do it if we wanted to, but that the crookedness probably wouldn’t get any worse than it already was, so there wasn’t really any need. We thanked him and left, and in fact the crookedness hasn’t gotten any worse.
Yes, of course that’s only an anecdote, and all it proves is that there’s at least one orthodontist in the US who doesn’t consider perfection necessary, but it’s the only experience I have with the profession.
Hollywood has set a standard of teeth (not sure if it’s art chasing reality) but the “new” teeth would be the preferred/normal look. There is such a thing as being too white and it has been a comedy routine in a number of TV skits.
Yes, but if I was American, I probably would have worn braces (my Spanish dentist recommended against them, saying that my teeth look ugly but have the best fit he’d ever seen, braces would likely have caused digestive problems) and would have gotten venners (my teeth are yellow due to having taken tetracyclines as a kid, abrasive whitening methods make them even yellower, as the core is yellower than the surface); my youngest brother’s slightly crooked teeth would have gotten braced. Middlebro did get braces, because he needed them for non-aesthetic reasons (they fixed his too-deep upper jaw; his teeth still are a bit crooked by American standards).
It’s not that cosmetic procedures don’t exist outside the US, but the amount to which they exist is different.
Unfortunately this has become a comedic myth in the US. Virtually anyone who ever gets in front of a camera has had their teeth cosmetically altered. It is rare for an actor or anyone in the public eye to have crooked or yellow teeth.
One celeb with bad teeth was Jewel but I think she had work done. At one concert she thought people were looking at her teeth and she said “look at my boobs”
I will admit to being put off by what I consider bad teeth. Yes, the very highest end, artificial looking Hollywood teeth can sometimes be off putting, but besides that I think most cosmetic dentistry has a positive effect. I apologize for my shallowness.
On the American version of “The Office,” the notion of an adult man not going to the dentist for regular cleaning was recently played for laughs.
It’s possible to get addicted to tooth whitening. I went to a bar and was served by a thin, droopy young girl who had nothing going on for her. At all. Except for her teeth, which glowed with an eerie blue-white light in the dim lighting of the bar. All you could see of her, or notice, were those unnatural blue-white teeth, like the Cheshire cat.
Really?
In the US regular cleaning is considered part of cavity control, the idea being that if you get them properly cleaned twice a year you’re less likely to have decay.
Oh - for the record - this American has never had braces, though my teeth are straight enough on their own some people don’t believe me when I tell them that. Also have all my wisdom teeth - had room, they came in with no problems, I keep 'em clean, and didn’t see a need to have healthy teeth removed even if it is “standard practice” here. They get a little yellowed from my tea habit and my likely of dark colored juices and fruits, but the biannual dentist visit and whitening toothpaste take care of that just fine with no need for extra whitening. Of course, half the battle is just taking proper daily care, you know, cleaning your teeth a couple times a day. I think some of the current obsession with whiteness is over the top. I’ve met a few people in my life with severely discolored teeth but they’re rare - most people I see talking about whitening treatments don’t really need it in my opinion.
Most Americans only go to the dentist twice a year. They do a cleaning while you’re there, but that’s all a dental cleaning is in the US, is a little tooth polisher that gets the plaque off. It’s not a thing we do all the time, certainly not more than twice a year.
I don’t think the average American goes for “perfect teeth”. Most people I know have regular teeth like in the pictures that have been posted. Reasonably straight due to braces, but not ultra-white, not veneered, and not fake-perfect looking. I rarely see those in real life, can’t remember the last time I did. If something was that obviously fake, I’d probably laugh inwardly. Like others have said in this thread, the overly-whited fake look is something that’s often made into a joke on sitcoms and things like that.
I had 4 teeth pulled before I got braces because my jaw was too small for all my teeth. When you look at my teeth now you don’t notice the missing teeth at all. I also had my wisdom teeth out later so I only have 24 teeth.
Well, covering decaying teeth would be a waste, but veneering decayed-but-repaired teeth might be worthwhile. Or teeth that for whatever reason just look bad (mine are a hideous shade, most likely due to antibiotic exposure as a young child, and the only answer would be veneering them).
How long such veneers would last, I don’t know.
The orthodontia (straightening) aspect of it, I’m QUITE familiar with… my son’s were over 5,000 dollars and my daughter’s will be something like 9,000 when all is said and done - she had to have two rounds of treatment.
The thing with orthodontia, is that it’s not just cosmetic, it CAN be a dental-health issue. With my daughter in particular, her teeth were coming in at such bad angles, and with such overcrowding, that they were going to damage each other.
A comment I heard fairly often as a child was to take care of your teeth and shoes, because this was the main way to tell the difference between the rich and the poor (according to my mother, who heard it growing up from her father, and as a side note, they were very poor growing up).
Strange, maybe, but I have always taken good care of my teeth. Of course, I don’t whiten mine. I use the standard toothpaste and floss and have regular dental visits.