No one wants their fake teeth to look fake anymore

livemint.com:

For every TikToker or reality show cast member who wants their pearly whites to be glaringly noticeable, there is a growing wave of people who would prefer the exact opposite. Some patients are no longer looking for veneers, dentist-created coverings that fit over the tooth enamel, to turn their teeth uniform and blindingly white. Instead they want to polish little imperfections, but not obscure them completely.

“The pendulum has swung back in the direction of undetectable," says cosmetic dentist Jon Marashi, whose practice is in Brentwood, Calif. One of his patients, Jeffrey Seabold, 57, who works in financial services in Los Angeles, was a longtime grinder. “My bottom teeth and front teeth were all straight but short from being ground down," Seabold says.

“Fixing my teeth has always been in the back of my mind." But Seabold shelved the idea for a while after seeing a friend’s dental work. “He got these chiclets," he says. “They looked absolutely fake.

You noticed it right away, and it really changed his appearance." Seabold wanted a dental shift that was more subtle. “I’m in my early fifties and pretty established and I didn’t want the change to be too noticeable to my friends and colleagues," he says of his eventual veneers, which made his teeth longer without radically altering his smile. Our real teeth have slight imperfections and irregularities—something slightly off-center, a microchip, a gap—which is what, many would argue, gives a smile personality.

They’re also not bright white. “They’re bright in the center, a little more translucent on the bottom, with a little more warmth up at the gumline," says Marashi, who believes veneers can and should mirror these nuances. “Mother nature doesn’t make teeth carbon