London’s coolest smile specialists

Like with many cosmetic enhancements, there’s a fine line between teeth that look clean, tidy and healthy and those that look comically overdone. And while some people may find tooth issues like gaps, wonkiness or overlapping aesthetically unappealing, these quirks do add character. Perfection is unnatural and can be unnerving for those subjected to the glare of a shiny white identikit smile.
Gleaming veneers did have a moment, but today any reputable dentist should be directing patients towards options that offer a more subtly souped-up smile, like composite bonding and AirFlow whitening (which uses a targeted jet of compressed air, water and powder particles to polish teeth instead of harsh chemicals), or retainers rather than fully fixed braces.
For a perfectly imperfect smile, look no further than these London-based masters of dentistry.
The King of composite bonding, Dr Tom shies away from crowns and traditional veneers as much as possible, instead using a steady hand and an artistic touch to manipulate colour-matched composite resin to fill in chips, smooth out bumps or line up the ends of teeth. All this without any drilling or injections, for natural-looking results. His eye for beauty doesn’t stop at teeth either — the Luceo waiting room could easily pass for a Chelsea Design Harbour showroom. The Luceo team also offer Kavo polishing, which feels much less painful on the gums and doesn’t require the harsh chemicals that are often used in traditional whitening gels. This is essentially power-wash-polishing your teeth.luceodental.com
A lovely concept in dentistry is to focus not just on teeth, but on your smile. And although Dr Sandra is a specialist in all areas of aesthetic dentistry (a dental degree followed by a master’s at NYU in periodontology — the study of gums and supporting structures of teeth — plus another master’s at NYU in aesthetic dentistry is quite the resume), her real passion is creating beautiful smiles.
And her ‘Digital Smile Design’ technology is happy making stuff indeed: a scan of the teeth is taken and uploaded to her computer on which she can plan and create custom-made braces (as well as crowns, bridges, veneers, implants and more) that perfectly fit your mouth and teeth shape. There’s also a video analysis in which Dr Sandra records the way you speak, so you can truly see yourself (and your mouth movements) how others do. She can even create a ‘Trial Smile’, an acrylic mould that can be popped onto your existing teeth to see how the new shape and shade of white will compliment your lips and facial features. There may not be a more thorough consultation process out there. sandrabigsmile.co.uk
If you grew up in the 80s or 90s it’s likely you were subjected to some unsightly and painful train-track braces. It’s also likely that you didn’t wear the head brace you were supposed to, you forgot to put your retainer in most nights, and therefore have had to face the prospect of redoing braces as an adult (in fact many dentists now will discourage braces in young teens, due to the amount your teeth and face structure changes).
Luckily, the path to straight teeth has advanced since then, with one of the leading companies, Invisalign, becoming a household name for their almost undetectable, pain-free technology. Dr Safa is not only an expert at using their systems, but utilises extra bells and whistles such as 3D scan to create your starter mould, weekly video scans (time-lapsed to show ongoing movement), and an app that reminds you to take those scans — which you take in the comfort of your own home using some rather fetching cheek retractors and your phone camera.
An expert in dentistry alongside facial aesthetics, Dr Safa can combine treatments to help achieve straightening and symmetry, and — importantly for those terrified of the dentist — serenity, with proof being her winning the Private Dentistry Award for Best Treatment of Nervous Patients four years in a row. serenedental.co.uk
If you are after a killer-watt smile without straying into Turkey-teeth territory, the very glamorous, highly-skilled Dr Rhona may well be the woman for the job. Her signature ‘Chelsea Look’ package is a trio of treatments, starting with Invisalign to straighten, bonding to fill in gaps and whitening to clean things up. Straight-talking but with a warm bedside manner, she is known for encouraging patience in her patients to enable time to create natural-looking but dazzling results, rather than looking for quick fixes.
If you’re looking for touch-ups rather than a full-on makeover, Dr Rhona has an impressive toolkit of treatments to tackle niggles, such as various forms of whitening and toxin injections (such as Botox) to help prevent teeth grinding by gently weakening the muscles that cause the repetitive movement.drrhonaeskander.com