Last year, if you walked into your dentist's office saying, "Hey, Doc, can you make my teeth look like Jessica Alba or Brad Pitt's?" the answer would have been, "Yeah, sure - with a lot of anesthetic, drilling and permanent reconstruction." But things have changed.
Meet the Snap-On Smile - a thin, flexible, resin shell of perfect teeth that snaps over your actual teeth like a retainer. No adhesive, no drilling. Its inventor, Marc Liechtung, is a dentist at Manhattan Dental Arts, where you can walk in on a Monday, make a painless plaster mold of your teeth and then pick up your new smile by Friday. All for $1,200 to $1,600. Patients can work with a "smile guide" to chose one of 17 colors ("yellow-white," "yellow-gray," even "Extreme White Buyer Beware") and 18 shapes ("squared," "square-round," "pointy"). But many patients just hand Liechtung a celebrity photo and say, "Make my teeth look like this." So he does.
But he wants to make one thing clear: "I did not come up with the Snap-On Smile so people could mimic celebrity smiles." His goal was an affordable, minimally invasive dental tool. "I had patients with almost no teeth who didn't have $20,000 for reconstruction," he says. So this year, after months in the lab, he unveiled Snap-On Smiles. People don't ask Liechtung whether the Snap-On causes permanent damage (it doesn't) or whether you can eat with it (you can - even corn on the cob). "No," Liechtung says, "they just want to know: 'Which is the most popular celebrity?' 'What kind of girls get Halle Berry?' 'Who do guys ask for?' "In the beginning, it made me sick. I thought I invented some serious medical device, but all people wanted to do was use it to make themselves look like celebrities!" Eventually he thought, Well, why not? "A person comes in, I say I can give them any teeth they want, who are they going to want to look like? Me? No!" Liechtung wears a Snap-On every day.
But whose smile is it? "I just made an enhanced version of my own," he says. But people rarely believe him. "I hate to admit it," he says, "but when they persist, I tell them my teeth are Brad Pitt's, because really, who wouldn't want his teeth?"
How Does Snap on Smile Work:
No shots. No dental drilling. No adhesives. You can even eat while wearing the Snap-On Smile appliance. Patients looking for a non-invasive, reversible, affordable approach to restorative and cosmetic dentistry are excellent candidates for Snap-On Smile. It's an easy, quick and affordable solution for patients who want to feel better, look better, and function better. Patients using Snap-On Smile report an immediate boost to confidence and self esteem. Most are impressed with the natural look and feel of Snap-On Smile and are grateful for the brief time investment - about two weeks - to achieve such life changing results. This revolutionary appliance is the ideal solution for solving a wide variety of short- and long-term clinical challenges, as it serves as both a non-invasive restorative option as well as a diagnostic appliance. Applications include using Snap-On Smile as aesthetic provisionals for implant restorations, as a vehicle for increasing facial height (vertical dimension), as cosmetic removable partial dentures, and even as a long-term smile enhancement. Snap-On Smile can last for years and yet is affordable enough to be temporary. It has also proven to be a terrific incentive for patients who are in need of but are hesitant to commit to more involved restorative treatment. In fact, our research has shown that 40 percent of patients who started treatment with the Snap-On Smile transitioned into more extensive restorative dentistry. Think of Snap on Smile as a professionally made (can only be fabricated by a dentist), highly esthetic, cost effective dental grill. I use Snap on Smiles all the time in my practice as temporary replacements of front teeth while my patients dental implants are healing. I love the appliance and highly recommend it for a variety of uses described above. If you enjoyed this article, there is a good chance you will like these articles from my blog as well:
- “Dr. Welch’s Take on Kanye West’s Diamond Teeth“
- “Jessica Alba: Female Celebrity Smile of the Year“
- “Mario Lopez: Male Celebrity Smile of the Year“
Thanks for Reading !!
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