Patient Testimonial - Getting The Hollywood Smile
The dilemma of being superficially deep or deeply superficial!
By Nancy L Kazdan
For: Dr Sarkis Nalbandian
It has been three years now and I have to tell this story for anyone female or male that wants to improve how they look. No, this isn’t the usual story about botox or other dermal fillers; it is about my Hollywood smile.
Three years ago I was watching the Oscars. It dawned on me that no matter who was giving or receiving an Oscar they all had one thing in common, their smile. So what was it about their smile? No it wasn’t bee stung lips, it was their teeth. Straight, white, inviting teeth. It was time to get The Hollywood Smile.
My lips had never been touched by a needle and my teeth were straight but slightly stained from years of too much coffee and diet coke. Another thing was that they were only slightly uneven from years of working in a stressful industry, running my own business and being a single mother, which led to grinding and unevenness. I later found out that all of us do, to some extent, no matter what age we are.
So I set out to find a cosmetic dentist I could work with. Being the over-engineering person my daughter says I am, I had criteria for finding the right dentist to work with.
First of all I needed someone to listen and provide cost effective alternatives that wouldn’t break my bank account. Secondly I wanted someone who would not grind my own teeth down to nothing because I like my own teeth anyway. I just wanted a fabulous enhancement. Thirdly, I wanted a negotiable dentist who not only listened but was up on the latest techniques both academically and internationally. In other words, someone who was open to alternatives and willing to provide recommendations totally focused on me. He came up with some valuable recommendations, like building my teeth up only slightly to make my lips more attractive and lengthening certain teeth to build my smile into a more attractive one.
The fourth criterion was someone who was artistic. Willing to deliberate and sculpt my teeth the way I visualized them, not just a technician. May be a tall order but I wanted to control the outcome because after all, I have to live and look at myself every single day of my life.
After interviewing three Cosmetic Dentists I found the right one. Dr Sarkis Nalbandian more than fitted my criteria. In fact, three years later he is still managing my teeth as if they were his own.
To start, he took lots of digital pictures of my smile and my teeth. He looked at my rather wide open almost Julia Roberts smile width, took more pictures and then we deliberated on smiles and whether I wanted teeth straight across the bottom or slightly sculpted on the edges of every tooth. He wanted to give me a natural white, but I wanted the whitest of white because I know things don’t always stay as bright as when they are first done. Then we decided on how many teeth we would be reshaping and recolouring, after that we decided on the substance that would give me my Hollywood smile.
Sarkis was open, interesting and outgoing. Not opinionated and listened better than I do. He didn’t recommend cutting my teeth down or porcelain because neither appealed to me nor did the cost. So he said he could give me exactly what I wanted by doing veneers. Sarkis used the analogy of the stuff they put on my nails. He said it was really better to work together and have this done in real time with his team in his office instead of sending impressions out to a lab which, neither he nor I could control as effectively.
So we scheduled the appointment and began the five hour journey to give me the Hollywood smile. The wonderful part was that the process was painless. Because I was so committed to this I was able to handle the time. He and his four staff talked me through everything so the time went faster. Needless to say Sarkis is also a fabulous manager and his staff synchronized their every action with his. Being a management consultant I could see that he definitely knew how to address every level of patient and staff issue. He had an overhead TV which helped me to focus on news and current events helping the time go faster.
When we got towards the end he did want to give me a slightly less bright tooth colour but I insisted on the brightest and so he complied with my wish although he said it would look artificial at first. I figured if other people needed sunglasses to look at my smile then a little New York glamour wouldn’t hurt them.
When it was all over and I looked in the mirror I couldn’t believe it. The Hollywood smile was mine. Sarkis and his team gave me more than I had bargained for on time and on budget. They were thrilled and so was I. But as they say, that was only the start.
First of all I found more confidence when I smiled. I’ve always had a big smile as you could see from my baby pictures so that wasn’t new. But the psychological change was incredible. I truly looked five to seven years younger. Because of my teeth my smile became my logo. When I was in meetings with clients they would remark how white my teeth were. Little did they know my teeth were sculpted to look perfect. Equally, men and women commented on how my smile looked. Other imperfections took a back seat to my smile. What I realized was that it wasn’t just my smile that changed, I wanted to smile and make other people feel invited and welcome in my world.
Three years on from my wonderful experience I am still reaping huge benefits. As we age, so do our teeth and that is the one thing that can be frozen in time. Another thing I keep noticing is that many people, primarily women who are spending money on cosmetics, dermatologists and plastic surgeons miss the smile and the quality of their teeth as a gateway to their world and the world of others.
It is our choice whether we want to buy into the moral and sociological dilemma of vanity and superficiality. Unfortunately we are pressured to look better, feel better, do better and affect others more positively so that we are accepted for better or worse in the world. I am certainly not advocating going against your own moral ground. However, if you are deciding to do some cosmetic enhancements you might want to think what really reaps value over time. Having my teeth improved makes me feel better about myself. I do like compliments. Yes, like many of us I too suffer from the human condition. So call me superficially deep or deeply superficial. Now it’s up to you! |
