Check out the hashtag #veneerscheck on TikTok, and you’ll see TikTokers on a mission to get whiter and brighter smiles. That allows TikTokers to document their journeys—sometimes literally journeys to Turkey and Colombia—to be able to declare “new teeth day.”
In some cases, they’re even preparing to get veneers by getting their teeth filed down, to create what’s colloquially known as “shark teeth.”
Two English dentists, in response, have taken to TikTok to decry the practice.
Dr. Emi Mawson, a Cornwall, England-based dentist who bills herself as “Your TikTok dentist,” took to the platform to comment on a high-profile recent tabloid case of veneers gone bad.
Commenting on model Katie Price’s reported misadventures with veneer preparation and placement in Turkey, explained that shaving down teeth is not typical for placing veneers over a patient’s teeth. It can be used, however, for preparing the teeth for crown placement—clearly, a much different procedure.
“As long as your teeth are aligned veneers, require minimal to no preparation whatsoever,” Mawson said in a TikTok video. “The veneers are much less disruptive to the teeth. I think it’s really important to understand the difference between veneers and crowns, particularly if you’re someone that’s considering cosmetic dental treatment.”
“I really don’t understand why her teeth have been shaved down to pegs,” Mawson said of Price. “Once your teeth are down to stubs, there is no going back.”
A London-based dentist, Dr. Shaddi Manouchehri, made a series of recent videos earlier this month detailing how filing teeth down “to pegs” could do significant damage.
In her most recent video, posted Nov. 18, Manouchehri reminds viewers that the nerve inside a tooth can be damaged in the shaving process, leading to the potentiality for a root canal and even an extraction.
She notes that the young woman she features at the start of the video will likely need veneers replaced four or five times throughout her life, imposing both a “financial burden” to have the procedure done and a “biological burden” on teeth that have had their integrity compromised.
Estimating the TikToker she featured to be 18, she notes, “She’s a gorgeous fine lady and she has just ruined her teeth possibly for the rest of her life. She’s going to and she’s going to have dentures by the age of 40. I personally wouldn’t choose that. Would you?”