Bright Whites, Big City

I once had a British boyfriend who said, as I emerged from the bathroom in completion of my bedtime ritual, “You cleaned your teeth! I will too!” It’s a line that works only with a Hugh Grant-like accent, for an American who neglects his teeth is tantamount to a cat that skips tongue grooming. We are a dental-obsessed culture. Ask people what the deal-breakers are when it comes to evaluating potential employees, suitors and even friends, and most will rank bad teeth right up there with criminal records.

So it’s no surprise that teeth whitening, which boomed between 1996 and 2000, remains one of the most popular procedures in cosmetic dentistry. According to the American Dental Assn., dental patients ask more about teeth whitening than they do cavities or gum disease. No longer a symbol of Hollywood vanity or orally fixated narcissism, teeth whitening is as common as hair coloring.

In Los Angeles, the man whose name is practically synonymous with brighter-than-bright smiles is Dr. Bill Dorfman. He’s the co-inventor of the Zoom! whitening method, in which a bleaching gel is applied to the teeth, which are then exposed to a metal haloid light that interacts with the hydrogen peroxide in the gel to speed the whitening process. Tooth sensitivity sometimes lasts for 24 hours, but the side effects are otherwise minimal.

“We can get teeth an average of eight shades whiter,” says Dorfman, who does about 100 whitening procedures a week at $300 to $500 each in his Century City office.

Dorfman, a young-looking 46-year-old with noticeably white teeth, co-owns Discus Dental, which manufactures Zoom! and the whitening systems known as Nite White and Day White. But he is probably best known as one of the dentists on the ABC reality series “Extreme Makeover,” in which whitening always is integral to the participants’ new look.

But not too much whitening. “When you see someone with teeth that are so white they look fake, they really are fake,” Dorfman says. “They’ve chosen [porcelain] veneers that are an unnatural shade.” Not even “overbleachers,” the people who visit the dentist with addictive regularity, can exceed their genetically determined potential for whiteness. “Some people just naturally have darker teeth than others,” he says.

But in a world in which the standards of beauty increasingly hinge on artificiality (consider the physical improbability of large yet perky breasts), preternaturally white teeth are one cosmetic ruse that’s no longer considered phony. Tom Cruise comes to mind as someone whose teeth are closer to the color of copier paper than anything occurring in nature. And even though the endlessly entertaining website www.awfulplasticsurgery.com singled out actor Gary Busey for his strikingly Chiclet-like smile, can we really blame him for trying to keep up with the super-bleached? In Hollywood, less-than-perfect teeth can relegate a performer to perpetual character-actor status. And because teeth now signify class status as well as health, whitening is seen less as a matter of excessive vanity and more as basic grooming.

It’s also one of the easiest ways to look younger, because teeth inevitably yellow with age. Edie Greenbaum, the 58-year-old co-owner of Factor’s Famous Deli in Los Angeles, underwent the Zoom! method after noticing that her teeth were darker than they once were.

“I’m not obsessed with my teeth,” says Greenbaum. “I wouldn’t have considered this when I was younger. But I’m around people a lot, and you do notice people’s teeth.”

Now her teenage son wants to do it, she says. “He doesn’t need it, but what are you going to do? People are concerned about the way they look in this city.”

That inarguable point is underscored at the sleek (and extremely white) Beverly Hills branch of BriteSmile. The one-hour BriteSmile procedure is similar to Zoom! in that it offers a one-hour procedure that uses a light to activate a whitening gel. The company claims that its patented “blue light” system also can improve oral health by killing certain bacteria. But the real genius lies in the company’s “smile indicator technology,” in which a digitalized mirror shows your as-is teeth and then instantly produces an image of how white the $600 BriteSmile procedure can make them. My “before” image suggested that I’d been smoking two packs a day since the Ford administration. My “after,” however, was nothing short of Halle Berry-esque. (Berry’s smile, incidentally, is said to be the one most requested by dentistry makeover patients.)

“A lot of times, people will be so excited about their new smile that they’ll walk out and get their hair and nails done,” says Jackie Streiker, sales manager for BriteSmile’s Beverly Hills Professional Teeth Whitening Spa.

Customers also can walk out of BriteSmile with home products, including a whitening maintenance toothpaste ($16.50), whitening gum, which costs $6.50 for a 30-piece tin, and a $30 whitening pen, which looks like a long tube of lip gloss and can be used before a meeting or a party.

“For us, [whitening is a] kind of a backhanded way of getting people in here,” says Matthew Messina, consumer advisor for the American Dental Assn. and a dentist in Cleveland. “It’s like with cars. If you’re proud of your car, you’ll keep it washed and try not to scratch it.”

As for my British boyfriend, the last time I checked he didn’t even own a car. But maybe now (unlike when I knew him) he’s got an extra $500 to devote to his teeth. That should be good news for whomever he’s dating.