Jessica Wright has had her teeth whitened
It is the fastest growing beauty treatment of the last five years – and stars are starting to realise they won’t be ‘all-white’ unless they have their teeth whitened.
The trend started in America where you cannot get on television unless your teeth are perfect.
And now increasingly, the same is happening in Britain as more and more celebrities copy big names like Simon Cowell who has, in the words of fellow whitener Piers Morgan, ‘vast glistening emulsion numbers so white they can blind a herd of elephants from two miles when he smiles.’
Celebrities from the hit ITV2 show The Only Way Is Essex all have their teeth whitened every few months.
Many of them use the Lovelite White clinic in Harley Street, London, which uses the pain-free Magenta treatment.
Clients include Billie Faiers, Jessica and Carol Wright, Lauren Pope, Ricky Rayment, Mario Falcone and Little Chris.
Lovelite’s Donnamarie McBride said: “Demand is huge - who wants to kiss someone with horrible yellow teeth.
“It’s all happened in the last 20 years or so – starting in America.
If you look at movies in the Eighties, there are all sorts of stars with yellow teeth. You’d never see that now. Everyone who is famous is getting them done.”
Lovelite offer the UK’s only de-sensitising system where a whitening gel is applied to the front teeth. The gel is activated using a light emitting diode which removes any staining and whitens the teeth.
First time users normally need two to three 20-minute applications.
Most celebrities have a top-up every six months so that their teeth remain shiny white.
Some, like Towie’s Little Chris, have even more regular top-ups, because their party-loving lifestyle means the teeth can stain again quite quickly.
Donnamarie said: “Chris’s teeth were quite yellow when he first came to us.
“You have to be very careful what you eat and drink for three days after the procedure and have what we call a white-through.
“Chris hadn’t been as careful as he could be so he came again.
“There are different shades of whiteness depending on just how white your teeth are naturally.
“Chris’s teeth are naturally very white and he went for the maximum shade of whiteness – it was really bling.
“Mario’s teeth were in better shape than Chris’s and we were able to give him a nice shade of white with his first procedure.”
Piers Morgan explained recently that, to make it on TV in America, white teeth were a ‘necessity’ because they are ‘ludicrously obsessed with personal appearance.’
He said: “Starting with teeth. I don't really have any ideological problem with making one's gnashers look a little more gleaming using the benefit of new technology.
“My teeth aren't bad. I've kept up regular visits to the dentist, replaced old metal fillings with white ones, and generally tried to keep them in some sort of reasonable aesthetic order.
“But when I appeared on my very first radio show in Hollywood, the first thing the female DJ said to me was: "God, I love your crooked yellow British teeth!" On air.
“I was mortified. "They're not crooked," I stammered eventually. "Or yellow."
"Oh yes they are," she chortled. "But don't worry, you're in the right town to get them fixed."
“Trying to persuade her that I didn't actually want them fixed was pointless.
In Los Angeles, everyone has perfect teeth, and if they don't, they get them fixed. Stung by the jibes, I threw caution to the wind and booked myself in for a £300 "laser teeth-whitening" session in Beverly Hills.
“It was a perfect lesson in vanity overpowering the brain, and an even more perfect illustration of the superficiality of Hollywood.
“I emerged after two hours with astonishingly white teeth - we're talking Donny Osmond in sunlight here.
“A lot of people since have commented on how much whiter my teeth look. And it feels oddly, horribly gratifying.”
Lovelite White train technicians at the clinic and sell their teeth whitening equipmentto salons all over the UK.
For more details, go to www.loveliteuk.co.uk