Growing up, Andrea Aro had braces not once, but twice. After her first experience, she felt her teeth were squished too close together, so, for her next round, she chose to see an entirely different orthodontist. Even after the second try, though, she still felt disappointed with the outcome. Aro says she had peg lateral canines, when the teeth develop into a cone shape and appear smaller than usual, and having straighter teeth only made them more pronounced—at least to her. Either way, she wasn’t happy. “When [my teeth] were in true alignment, I was left with really big gaps,” the 38-year-old says. “The only way to correct those gaps aesthetically was with veneers.” Or so she thought.

Aro received her first set of veneers in 2009 without really understanding what she was getting herself into. “I didn't even know what a veneer was back then,” she recalls. Her biggest fear at the time was ending up with large and long “horse teeth.” She mentions Hilary Duff’s experience in 2005 (Duff had hers revised fairly quickly), although she didn’t explicitly communicate that to her dentist. Aro left the exam chair with eight sparkling veneers on the top row of her mouth, bigger and more “bulbous” than she would’ve preferred. “I always felt they were a little bit blocky, but I was just so grateful to not have tiny little peg teeth [next to] big buck teeth,” she says. They cost around $1,200 per tooth and were paid for by her mother. Eventually, like an increasing number of patients, she would come to have her original veneers completely replaced with a set she found more appropriate for her face.

For some patients, the word “veneer” acts as a catchall for a variety of other cosmetic dental terms, including crowns, composite bonding, and sometimes implants. But a true veneer is a hard, slip-like cover that’s cemented onto the front of the tooth and wraps under the edge. Some dentists compare the little caps to a Gel X-extension or a contact lens for your teeth, but they most definitely can’t be popped on and off as easily. In fact, they’re an irreversible, lifelong commitment—and people are starting to suffer from veneer regret.

To enable a porcelain veneer to stay on through the bites, chews, and gnawings of daily life, the healthy enamel of the tooth needs to be sanded down to create a rough surface for the veneer to be stuck onto for the next 10 to 15 years. Usually, a patient will also have their teeth drilled to a degree, since it’s necessary to smooth sharp edges or make more room for a veneer to fit perfectly. (If the original teeth are perfectly straight with no sharp edges, veneers that require no prep are possible, but those circumstances are exceedingly rare.) Even with minimal drilling, though, your teeth will never be the same. “No dentistry is reversible,” says Dr. Sam Jethwa, a London-based cosmetic dentist. “Once you stick something [to a tooth], you're sticking it to last.”

The many faces of veneer regret

Plenty of celebrities have been public about regretting their veneers, including Bad Bunny, who’s opened up about the physical pain they caused him, and Kehlani, who’s spoken about her “cheap” resin veneers. Influencer Alix Earle also wishes she had kept her natural teeth intact. A GRWM TikTok Earle posted last summer began with her taking out what appears to be an emery board and filing down her front teeth, explaining that one of her veneers had chipped the previous night while she was talking to Kate Hudson aboard the Ritz-Carlton’s super-yacht. (A lot to unpack there, but let’s focus on the teeth.) As Earle moves on to blending her foundation, she proceeds to tell her audience that she had gotten the veneers the previous summer, but “I didn’t talk about it because I didn’t want to influence anyone to do it because I don’t think you should.” Her own regret was immediate, she says with tears in her eyes: “I was like, ‘What did I just do? I had such good teeth, and now… I’m going to have to keep up with this for the rest of my life.’”

Earle’s dilemma seems to be the issue for many frequenters of the /porcelainveneerstruth subreddit. “I had healthy natural teeth and did this purely as a cosmetic procedure due to my gapped teeth and thinking they were too small,” one Redditor wrote. “They weren't perfect, but they were my real teeth…. I feel so upset and so much regret for choosing veneers. I find myself constantly wishing I could go back and undo the decision.”

Scroll through the subreddit’s page for a few minutes and you’ll find much of the same story: Someone with healthy teeth got veneers to fix something minor, like a chip or a gap, and is now dealing with anxiety about the long-term maintenance and costs of their permanent dental decision. (Though procedures vary widely, a full set of veneers can run anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars—and remember, they don’t last forever.) “Many were never fully informed about conservative alternatives, such as Invisalign, whitening, or enhanced additive composite bonding,” Mike, the founder of Beauty Beyond Veneers and lead moderator of the subreddit, tells Allure in an email. “Patients also did not realize that permanent enamel removal could lock them into an irreversible cycle of ongoing maintenance, future replacements, financial strain, and lifelong commitment.”

Mike’s own veneer experience started in 2003, when he was 18 and wanted to treat a small chip. “I was told that the chip could not be repaired and that I needed six porcelain veneers. I now know that was not true, yet many patients are still being told the same thing today,” he says. A family member paid $6,000 for Mike's dental work. “At that age, I did not fully understand the lifelong consequences of permanently removing healthy enamel," he adds. "I later had the veneers replaced, and over the years I experienced ongoing concerns with their appearance, my bite, discomfort, and the feeling that my natural smile had been permanently altered.” All in all, Mike has spent around $52,000 on veneers and other related dental work over the last 23 years.

Aro started to become more self-conscious of her smile’s big, white, “manufactured” look as the years passed, and says the size and one-dimensional coloring were what stuck out the most. “That's when I started to realize, Oh, if I laugh really big or if I smile really big, you can pick out those eight teeth,” she says.

In 2021, when Aro was able to afford a revision, she was scrolling through Instagram and found Dr. Kevin Sands, a Beverly Hills-based cosmetic dentist. After a chance meeting in an elevator with a woman who worked in his office, she scheduled an appointment. During her first visit, Dr. Sands put into words what Aro felt about her initial set: They were angular, blocky, and too masculine for her face. “He said all the things that I wasn't able to articulate but was thinking,” she says.

Within a month, she left his office with eight new veneers. “I think I might've cried,” Aro says, describing them as “fresh” and “youthful.” “You probably could have put my first set of veneers on someone else and they would've looked okay,” she notes, “but I feel like the new ones that Dr. Sands did are just so tailored to me.” Aro got eight new veneers at $3,500 each, totaling $28,000. She now works for Dr. Sands as his office manager.

The age of big, bright, pearly whites

In the early 2000s up until the late 2010s, Aro’s first set wouldn't have been so jarring. Back then, it was easy to tell who had veneers soldered onto their teeth and who didn’t—that was kind of the point. At the time, the shells were usually made from resin composite or a thicker, more opaque porcelain material than what dentists have access to today. The teeth were bright, white, and often larger than average due to the materials available. And that led to a uniform “Hollywood smile” that paired nicely with the logomania, rhinestoned baby tees, and maximalism of the era.

“I mean, people couldn't get their teeth big enough and white enough,” says Dr. Jon Marashi, a Los Angeles-based cosmetic dentist whose patients have included Cher, Lindsay Lohan, Matt Damon, Christina Aguilera, and Kate Hudson, according to photos on his Instagram and website. “People wanted to have a noticeable difference.”

As other forms of cosmetic work began to rise in popularity, veneers also became a not-so-subtle signifier of wealth: Having perfect teeth is a visible indicator that someone not only has money to spend, but that they chose to use it on something showy—conspicuous consumption of the mouth. And that’s still technically true today. After all, one of Cardi B’s most famous lyrics is, “Got a bag and fixed my teeth/hope you hoes know it ain’t cheap.”

Although noticeable cosmetic work may have been the norm a decade ago, the aesthetic pendulum has swung back to mimic fashion’s “quiet luxury” obsession—having work that’s undetectable is now the standard. “In beauty, there’s always this tension that goes back and forth between the look of natural and the look of artificial, whether you look at lips or bodies or breasts or teeth,” says Maxine Craig, a sociology professor at the University of California, Davis who studies beauty and its meaning in society. “Fashion and beauty need novelty, and part of these tensions are what keep that novelty going.” The back and forth, it seems, is now putting patients in the dentist's chair again.

“More than half of my practice is dedicated to what I call revision dentistry or redo dentistry,” Dr. Marashi says. He’s seen an uptick in patients coming in for a veneer change and asking for newer, sleeker sets—like trading in an old car for a new model. “The pendulum swung back in the other direction, and [we’ve] gone to a much more tasteful, discreet, natural aesthetic.”

At the beginning of the veneer boom in the early 2000s, “the material and the product that was being used was not as fine-tuned as today,” says Dr. Alex Rubinov, a cosmetic dentist based in New York City. He compares the modern shift in dental aesthetics to the saying “money talks and wealth whispers.” “You don't have to be wearing Fendi top to bottom every single day for people to know that you like fashion," he adds. "It’s the same thing with dentistry or any other form of aesthetics.”

Dr. Richard Lipari, a cosmetic and general dentist based in Chappaqua, New York, says he’s also experiencing an increase in veneer revision cases for patients who come in with overly manufactured and “lifeless” veneers. “They're almost opaque or thick and they don't look natural,” he explains. While some patients need their veneers replaced due to the passage of time, others are coming in for a revision long before the end of their veneers’ lifespan—sometimes they want them off almost immediately.

That’s exactly what happened to Sarah*, a 33-year-old woman in New York City. She chipped her front tooth in a swimming pool accident as a child and spent most of her life remedying it with composite bonding. “It wasn’t the right color and I had to get the bonding done a few times because it wasn’t secure,” she says. Last year, she ended up getting a set of six veneers from her family dentist to fix the chip and also improve the look of gum recession above her canines. Immediately after, she was in distress: “They just looked like Chiclets, like, so obviously fake, and that was not what I was going for whatsoever.” The very same day, she called Dr. Rubinov in tears and booked a revision appointment. One year later, she now has six brand-new veneers that she says fit perfectly with her face. “No one would ever know,” she adds. According to Dr. Rubinov’s office, a case like Sarah’s would cost anywhere from $23,000 to $28,000 for six teeth.

The veneer regret Sarah experienced with her first set may be due to the ceramicist used by her previous dentist. “Not everybody has access to the same ceramicist,” Dr. Rubinov tells Allure. “Very few doctors have access to my ceramicist because of the volume that I do, and he only works on a handful of accounts.” The relationship he has with the artist, he says, is what allows him to have a more hands-on approach to the aesthetics of his signature smiles. This is also the majority of his work; a patient’s family dentist, however, may not do as many veneer cases as a cosmetic dentist like Dr. Rubinov, so he or she doesn’t have the same access to a highly skilled ceramicist who can handcraft a bespoke smile.

The gold standard for veneers is porcelain, a glass-like material that ceramicists shape layer by layer. Composite resin is more malleable and easy to sculpt (and can be up to 50% cheaper), but it's more opaque and doesn’t last as long. It does have a time and place, though, specifically for dental work in a transition phase. “For instance, composite is ideal for a teenager whose jaw and teeth are still developing," says Dr. Victoria Veytsman, a cosmetic dentist based in New York City, "or for a patient in the middle of a complex, multi-stage treatment plan who needs a temporary aesthetic improvement before upgrading later.”

While not all dentists are able to have a master ceramicist on call, it’s hard not to be seduced by the potential money to be made in the big business of veneers. “It's sexy, it's rich, it's expensive,” Dr. Rubinov says. “Everybody wants to do veneers.” But unless you’re going to a dentist who does them on a daily basis, caveat emptor.

Bespoke veneers as the new status symbol

Among the dentists Allure spoke with, most revision cases involve previous sets of veneers applied with an outdated one-size-fits-all technique, where a set of veneers is made in a lab without taking each patient's very specific features into account. “That process involves manufacture, but it doesn't involve design,” Dr. Jethwa says.

That’s exactly what happened to Dr. Rubinov’s patient Sarah. “Temporaries weren’t done, it didn’t follow the same steps that Dr. [Rubinov] had,” she says. “I was a bit naive and I didn’t do enough homework on how to go about this…. I was kind of along for the ride instead of helping direct it.”

Many high-end practices now prioritize facial harmony and, as Dr. Jethwa says, design. Before the artistic process begins, these dentists tell us, an in-depth consultation needs to happen. For Dr. Marashi, his first order of business is to identify the exact problems the patient has with their teeth. He requests photos of their original smile and asks them what, in their opinion, a successful revision would look like. “Everyone's interpretation of beauty is different,” he explains.

Dr. Lipari takes a similar approach. “I tend to use a lot of the original characteristics of the person's teeth in redesigning the new teeth, unless the patient is telling me that they absolutely hate how their teeth look to start off with,” he says. “Then we can obviously pivot from there.”

If Dr. Marashi's revision patients aren’t sure where to start, he performs an “aesthetic analysis,” where he compares the size, shape, length, and color of their original veneers to what he thinks would be ideal for them individually. “Is it more of a square shape, which tends to be more of a masculine characteristic? Or does it need to be more rounded and oval or bell-shaped, which is more of a feminine characteristic?” he asks.

The color is also a very critical element to creating a one-of-a-kind smile. “I like to do color selection of veneers based on skin tone,” Dr. Marashi continues, particularly when it comes to whether or not a patient’s skin is warm- or cool-toned. Before starting the actual procedure, he’ll show the patient a 3D rendering or 3D printout of what the veneers will look like. “That gives patients a real strong sense of confidence in the direction that it's headed,” he says.

Historically, old veneers were removed from teeth using a drill—a process Dr. Marashi calls miserable due to the potential pain. But now many practices, like Dr. Marashi’s, use a dental laser to penetrate right through the porcelain and melt the glue. Once the veneers are off, he’ll have the patient test-drive a temporary set for a couple of days—they’re an exact replica of what’s to come, so each patient can be 100% sure they’re happy with their new smile.

Not everyone has the luxury of trying before buying. But even though there are many people who regret their dental work, the majority of people Allure spoke with say they would’ve climbed into the dentist chair no matter what.

For some, it was out of necessity. Almost 14 years ago, Melissa*, a 41-year-old based in Miami, was in a car accident. She needed emergency work done on her teeth, which resulted in her getting 12 veneers—six on the top row and six on the bottom. “They were so white that they were blinding,” she says. “You could tell that they were veneers.” Although she wasn’t pleased with the outcome, she lived with them. “I would never laugh in public,” she recalls. “When I would talk, I would put my hand over my mouth so nobody stared at my teeth. It made me have this weird insecurity that I had never had before.”

Melissa's now-husband introduced her to Dr. Marashi, and in 2022, she walked out of his office with 18 veneers—10 on the top and 8 on the bottom. She cried when she first saw them. “You would never know that these weren't my teeth,” she says. “They are so beautiful. The color is amazing. The shape is perfect.”

Mike, the moderator of the /porcelainveneerstruth subreddit, has made his corner of the internet a safe space not only for those who regret their veneers, but for people who are looking for guidance on where to start the process. If you’re thinking about getting veneers, he has some advice: Slow down, ask difficult questions, get multiple opinions, and learn from people who have already been through it. “Your individual features and imperfections are part of what makes you recognizable and uniquely you,” he says. When it comes to well-made veneers, information and planning may be the antidote for regret.