Why Does Everyone Have Big, Fake White Teeth Now?

Veneers were once a dirty secret. Now, they're a luxury status symbol and the famous and wealthy are flocking to Hollywood's favorite dentist in search of even more perfect smiles

- Joshua Hunt

EARLY ONE AFTERNOON in August, at his office on the ninth floor of the Camden Medical Arts building in Beverly Hills, Dr Kevin Sands slipped on a black surgical mask and latex gloves before peering into the mouth of a sleeping princess. Instead of standard medical scrubs, he wore black Amiri slacks, a matching James Perse T-shirt and Nike sneakers designed by Travis Scott. On his left wrist was a Patek Philippe Aquanaut with a khaki green dial and matching strap. The watch cost just over $50  000 (about R870  000), which is about a third of what her royal highness was paying to have 28 perfectlooking cosmetically enhanced teeth restored with a new set of handmade porcelain crowns and veneers.

“I’ve been seeing the royal families, the Al-Thani family and the Al-Saud family, for 20 years,” Dr Sands said of the ruling households of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. “Once I started seeing one member of the family, word got out and then I was tied in to all the embassies, so when anyone comes into town the embassy sends them here.”

What keeps them coming to Dr Sands, rather than top-notch dentists elsewhere, is a reputation built around his elite clientele, whose faces stare back from the framed magazine covers adorning the office walls: Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian and Ye, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlie Sheen. For years, Dr Sands told me, Hollywood stars didn’t want to be associated with cosmetic dentistry any more than they wanted people knowing about their facelifts and breast implants. The extent to which this has changed became obvious as I perused photos of the dentist posing with A-list patients on his Instagram — Tyga, Lana Del Rey, Miley Cyrus — while he picked out two photos of himself with Matthew McConaughey for a new post. (Dr Sands emphasised that not all of his patients have veneers, and he asked that some not be named in this article.)