Americans have a bizarre fixation with ‘perfect’ teeth. The ultra-white, ultra-straight look is uncanny to me.
this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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I'm not American but it gets normalized when you see the veneer smiles everywhere.
Canada too it seems, at least from dentist perspective...I was offered braces multiple times even though they confirmed it's unnecessary after I questioned why would I need them. It's just business to them and they want to keep doing stuff as long as you have insurance coverage
Fascination with teeth is and has always been weird to me.
Nothing wrong with most British teeth I’ve seen. But I don’t fixate on it.
It’s a relatively interesting difference between our two countries, in the 1940s the USA was being introduced to movie stars who had the “Hollywood smile” which led to a lot of people turning to cosmetic dentistry.
In the UK in 1948 dentistry became available for free on the NHS, with a focus on health rather than cosmetics. Sadly in 2006 they changed the deal for dentists so they had to perform hundreds of procedures before they could claim any money, rather than the pay-per-procedure they had been on before. In the last 20 years it’s become almost impossible to find an NHS dentist because they have all quit, and the UK has got too used to getting it for free so it’s not considered something you need to pay for.
TBH, this makes very little sense to me, because that stereotype hasn’t been true for decades. I was once a braces kid (in a country where that was very normal) and have been living in the UK for 10 years. No significant differences in the state of people’s teeth.
Either the people you were watching are very old (born pre WW2) or an especially unlucky bunch. 😆
You know the people doing the game show circuit? Check out the middle aged people, men in particular. Plenty of wonky teefies. Dunno if I'd call them unlucky.
Were you watching Jeremy Kyle or something?
Turkey/Türkiye Teeth is becoming a thing in the UK though, where people get brilliant white veneers done for cheap somewhere in Türkiye.
There's a certain demographic who tends to get these done, as stereotyped in this song:
Had a guy come by a few months ago who was knocking on doors selling his service. Weathered face, very tanned, smoker, brilliant white straight teeth. A complete mismatch. Veneers are a bit hilarious.
Did you buy the feather duster or just settle for the j-cloths?
I reflected upon this today after watching something with David Mitchell that I believe is from old money.
Boy watch things from the 70's and 80's. A lot of them get work done on them now.