Posting our every move on social media has its joys and consequences — one of which is the incessant opportunity for self-criticism. Our smiles, oddly enough, are often the target of our scrutiny. There we are, mid-scroll on TikTok, wondering if we should have worn our retainers a little more stringently in sixth grade.
But how many of us are actually taking action?
As it turns out, a growing number of young women are actively seeking out veneer consults, even when their teeth are healthy, straight and functional. Veneers — essentially a thin, custom-made porcelain shell for teeth once reserved for the Hollywood elite or midlife reinventions — have quietly become part of the modern beauty conversation, discussed in the same breath as Botox, filler and laser treatments.
What feels new isn’t the desire for nice teeth, but how commonplace the idea of altering them (often in a very costly and somewhat dramatic way) has become. In many cases, there’s nothing clinically wrong with our teeth at all — a smile may be slightly warmer in tone, a tooth a fraction shorter than its neighbor.
However, details that once would have gone unnoticed now seem glaring. These small variations are part of what gives faces character and humanity, but because they don’t resemble the uniform, hyper-polished smiles saturating social media, young women are increasingly growing up believing that cosmetic alteration isn’t an exception, but an expectation.
Spend time on TikTok or Instagram, and you’ll see it everywhere: “smile transformations,” “seat day” reveals, influencers documenting their temporary teeth and final results in real time. The language is casual, almost breezy, as if cosmetic dentistry is simply another stop on the self-care circuit (scheduled right after a facial or waxing appointment).
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than 260,000 minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed on patients 19 and under in 2023. And while veneers aren’t tracked the same way as injectables, young adults without medical issues are increasingly seeking consults with dentists for an aesthetic upgrade.
Young girls have always been coerced into obsessing about their image — having the perfect body shape, silky hair, impossibly smooth skin — but today, it’s getting even more granular.
“Now more than ever, we are staring at our own faces,” says Andi-Jean Miro, a New York City-based cosmetic dentist with several celebrity patients. “Between Zoom, FaceTime, TikTok and dating apps, it can feel like living with a camera on you all the time.” In that setting, small details become magnified, and perfection begins to feel attainable and therefore expected.
Young women are increasingly growing up believing that cosmetic alteration isn’t an exception, but an expectation.
Social media has also changed how cosmetic work is discussed. Procedures that were once private are now documented publicly, often framed as transparency. Veneer “journeys” unfold in real time — even though some of the details are omitted in favor of a pithy, watchable video. Temporary teeth are shown, final results are revealed. The repetition has a normalizing effect.
“When you see it enough,” Miro says, “veneers start to feel routine, even if your natural teeth are already beautiful.” Celebrities and influencers have played a role in this shift, offering highly visible smile transformations that circulate widely online.
But the images themselves can be misleading. Many of the smiles labeled as “veneers” are actually crowns — a far more invasive procedure that requires the significant removal of the natural tooth structure.
Even moments that serve as cautionary tales don’t depict the true story. Internet personality Tana Mongeau famously posted a TikTok showing her “veneers” falling out, a clip that quickly went viral. What many viewers didn’t realize — and what dentists are quick to point out — is that what fell out was likely a crown, not a veneer, a distinction that underscores how poorly understood these procedures have become online.
But that difference is critical in a clinical setting. And once you shave down those pearly whites? Well, that’s that.
“A veneer is an enhancement. A crown is reconstruction,” Miro explains. Veneers cover only the front surface of a tooth and can often be done conservatively. Crowns encase the entire tooth, requiring aggressive drilling. “For younger patients with healthy enamel, crowns are usually unnecessary. And once that enamel is gone, you can’t get it back.”
Jan Nevidal via Getty Images
Pia Lieb, a dentist, founder of Cosmetic Dentistry Center NYC and a former clinical assistant professor at New York University, sees the effects of this confusion regularly. She describes a generation that examines their smiles with an intensity that was previously impossible. “Patients come in with concerns about a single tooth being slightly longer or less symmetrical,” she says. “They are zooming in on their own faces in ways that weren’t available even a decade ago.”
Filters and editing tools further distort expectations. Teeth appear whiter, straighter and more uniform than biology actually allows. “Young women are comparing themselves not just to influencers,” Lieb says, “but to filtered images and AI-generated faces.” The result is a narrowing definition of what a “good” smile looks like, one that often excludes natural variation. And that’s dangerous.
While veneers can be appropriate in certain cases — such as physical trauma, intrinsic discoloration or developmental issues — both Lieb and Miro caution against treating them as a cosmetic shortcut. Veneers require long-term maintenance and eventual replacement. Plus, they can take a good chunk out of your wallet, running from $500 to $2,500 per tooth.
Over-preparation can lead to sensitivity, nerve damage and restorative work later in life. “This part is rarely shown online,” Miro says. “Cosmetic dentistry is a commitment, not a trend.”
What stands out most about the surge in cosmetic consults isn’t vanity so much as vulnerability. It’s the moment when a young woman pauses a video of herself and wonders why her smile doesn’t look like the ones she sees everywhere else. It’s the slow accumulation of images, comparisons and “before-and-afters” that make perfectly healthy teeth start to feel insufficient.
And recent, poignant findings have shown that teen girls process social media content involving body image differently than their male counterparts. Research from 2022 suggests that teen girls reported using TikTok and Instagram (where there’s an abundance of content with strong suggestions about body image and aesthetics) more often, while teenage boys use Twitch, YouTube and Reddit.
One problem with this, says Amanda Raffoul, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is “a societal acceptance of body dissatisfaction in teen girls as a normal.” In a story by The 19th, she explained that this assumption “can create a dangerous environment for teens to engage in social media.”
Since young women and girls are exposed to more body criticism online, it’s worth having real conversations, offline, about what certain dental procedures entail and whether having one is truly necessary — rather than a byproduct of something we see on an AI-doctored image or in a post from an influencer.
In a culture that rewards polish and uniformity, the pressure rarely announces itself outright — it builds gradually, until opting out feels harder than opting in.
A smile, after all, is not just another aesthetic choice. It is functional, biological and deeply personal, shaped by genetics, age and real life experience. As cosmetic dentistry becomes increasingly normalized for younger patients, the question shifts from whether veneers are beautiful to whether young women are being given enough space — and enough honest information — to decide what they actually want.
Sometimes, enhancement is the right choice. But sometimes, the best option is realizing that the smile you already have doesn’t need fixing at all.