How to Get a Perfect Smile?

Have a sneaking suspicion people aren’t looking you in the eye when they talk to you? You may be right–their gazes could be pointed downward. At your teeth.

In recent years, Americans have become more focused on the appearance of their teeth, and it is less common to see someone’s “natural” ivories. Consumers, perhaps inspired by sparkling celebrity smiles in magazines and on television, have become less tolerant of chipped choppers, wayward bicuspids and seemingly any degree of dental discoloration. Dentists have also become savvier about selling their cosmetic services–they are no longer doctors with drills and a six-month bounty on your mouth, but consultants who can help you improve your smile.

As a result, the number of cosmetic dental procedures requested in the U.S. has grown by about 12% over the last five years, according to the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry in Madison, Wis. “Spas” devoted to teeth whitening have opened across the country. And at-home whitening products, which include Colgate-Palmolive‘s Simply White and Procter & Gamble‘s Crest Whitestrips, have become a $300-million-plus market, the AACD estimates.

Of course, perfect teeth, like flawless gems, can come at very hefty prices.

Depending on how major a change a person seeks in a smile (and the condition the teeth are in to begin with), professional help can cost anywhere from around $300 for basic brightening to as much as $100, 000 for a full overhaul of the mouth and some plastic surgery. Fortunately, such an undertaking is rarely necessary, and rarely suggested.

Since the 1990s, when the procedure started booming, teeth bleaching has been the most common and most requested cosmetic dental procedure. It also happens to be one of the cheapest and easiest ways to upgrade a smile, involving only a quick trip to the dentist or a swipe of a brush each night. As a beneficial side effect, it has also encouraged people to make more dental visits.

“It increases the patient’s awareness of what is happening in their own mouths, ” says Dr. Marty Zase, president of the AACD and a practicing dentist at Colchester Dental Group in Colchester, Conn. “It’s relatively inexpensive, and you get the biggest bang for your buck, because you’re treating all the teeth at once, whereas a crown or filling can get costly, because you treat each individual tooth.”