How Aimee Lou Wood's teeth won over Hollywood

The White Lotus actor Aimee Lou Wood has helped set a new trend with her distinctive smile

(Image credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO)

Sparkling white, flawlessly straight teeth have long been thought of as a key ingredient for a perfect smile among the rich and famous. Now, however, it seems a more natural and characterful set of British gnashers is in vogue in Hollywood.

Rising actor Aimee Lou Wood, star of the latest series of "The White Lotus", is among those with a unique and unaltered smile who are setting the new trend. They are ending "decades of dental dominance from large and very white veneers or crowns", said The Telegraph.

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'The joy of seeing real teeth'

Many young celebrities are "choosing to stick with what nature gave them when it comes to their dentistry", and that will have a "snowball effect". The more "people in the public eye" maintain their natural teeth, the more other people will too.

In the case of "actress of the moment" Wood, she has been "heralded as a radical because she has not had her teeth done", like it is an "act of rebellion" that she and others dare to "love their natural features", said Grazia.

While the "discourse" around it "might be celebratory", there "shouldn’t be" so much focus on an actor maintaining their natural features. It can often come across as "extremely condescending".

Yet there is a real "joy" in "seeing real teeth reflected back at us on our screens", said Daisy Jones in British Vogue. It's particularly important at a time when "societal notions of beauty are more homogenised than ever", and anything that can potentially help a "teenage girl feel better and more confident about" her smile "can only be a good thing".

'Orthodontic agony'

The contrasting "attitudes towards teeth" is the clearest "demonstration of the difference between America and Britain", said Hannah Moore in The Spectator. In America, you "subject yourself to years of semi-torture to achieve" a "white picket fence of perfectly uniform teeth", and "years of orthodontic agony" is preferable to ending up with "British teeth". But "crooked doesn’t mean unhealthy", and that has traditionally been "what Americans get wrong".

British people have often neglected the general maintenance of their teeth, with "caring about your smile" historically being seen as "deeply uncouth", said The Independent. But the "tide" could be "finally turning when it comes to our teeth", with millennials reportedly spending "eight times as much" on their teeth as their grandparents' generation.

The "long-standing bad brushing habits" and "inability to get in the dentist's chair" have in the past made it "hard to imagine" that British teeth could "reach the pearly heights of the Hollywood smile".

Yet British smiles now seem to be "moving the needle", simply by having "natural teeth on screen", said Grazia. However, the "collective fascination" and "obsession" with distinctive teeth like Wood's may speak "to a wider cultural issue regarding modern beauty standards".

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Richard Windsor is a freelance writer for The Week Digital. He began his journalism career writing about politics and sport while studying at the University of Southampton. He then worked across various football publications before specialising in cycling for almost nine years, covering major races including the Tour de France and interviewing some of the sport’s top riders. He led Cycling Weekly’s digital platforms as editor for seven of those years, helping to transform the publication into the UK’s largest cycling website. He now works as a freelance writer, editor and consultant.