Hollywood stars have long sported Chiclet smiles, and New Yorkers have been on top of the white teeth trend for some years now, but finally, from Primrose Hill to Peckham, laser teeth whitening is a hot topic and requires advance booking among the fashion set in London. Europeans aren’t exactly the picture of gleaming white teeth, but that’s changing as a set of newly whitened teeth (not the home-process variety) is the “must-have” fashion accessory du moment. Buoyed by many years of success in America, companies like BriteSmile (the process to get) are using their proprietary blue light technique to achieve dramatic results that make your teeth up to nine shades lighter in only an hour, with the brightening lasting up to two years.

As a consequence, fashionistas are speed dialing London Day Surgery, one of the locations where dental specialists conduct the painless guck peroxide and blue spectrum matching procedure to erase those years of cigarette smoking (from back when it was cool), so you can say cheese for the camera without having your teeth serve as exhibit A for the color of cheddar. Removing stains from teeth is the first upshot, but a brighter smile also takes years off the face and this message is certainly not lost on beauty seekers. And when you achieve a level of confidence — like you might have in a crocodile clutch or a Swiss timepiece — in a winning smile, the proposition is too bright to ignore. Now if this trend could only get going in Paris…


-Jason Campbell

Photos: BriteSmile