Walk into any high-end cosmetic dentistry practice in Los Angeles and you will hear the same conversation. Patients arrive with a phone open to a celebrity photo, and they want to know how close they can get to that smile.
Dr. Kevin Sands has been having that conversation for more than 25 years. As a Beverly Hills cosmetic dentist Dr. Kevin Sands, Sands has watched the request list shift from one decade to the next. The Julia Roberts smile of the nineties gave way to the bright, uniform look of the mid-2000s, which has since given way to something softer and more individualized. Below, Sands ranks the ten celebrity smiles his patients ask about most often, and explains what makes each one technically distinct.
Table of Contents
1. Hailey Bieber
Bieber’s smile has become the single most-referenced look in Sands’ Beverly Hills practice over the past three years. The features patients point to are the natural tooth shape, the slightly rounded incisal edges, and the warm white shade that reads as healthy rather than bleached.
“It is the textbook example of the quiet-luxury smile,” Sands says. “Everything about it is restrained.”
2. George Clooney
Clooney’s smile sits at the top of the list for male patients. Sands credits the combination of a strong canine line, well-proportioned central incisors, and a color that is bright but never stark.
“Men in their forties and fifties bring up Clooney almost every week,” he says. “It is masculine, age-appropriate, and clearly maintained but not overdone.”
3. Zendaya
Zendaya is the most-requested reference for younger patients seeking what Sands calls dimensional brightness. The smile shows visible translucency at the edges of the front teeth, a feature that distinguishes a natural-looking restoration from a generic bright veneer set.
4. Tom Cruise
Cruise’s smile is a long-running case study in evolution. Photographs from the late nineties show a noticeable midline shift and uneven anterior teeth. Today’s smile is symmetrical, well-aligned, and proportioned to his facial structure.
“You can almost teach a course from his career timeline,” Sands notes. “Each stage shows what was possible at the time.”
5. Gwen Stefani
Stefani’s smile is requested for a specific reason. The slight separation between her front teeth has remained throughout her career, even as the rest of her smile has been refined. That choice resonates with patients who want correction without losing personality.
6. Cardi B
Cardi B’s smile transformation is one of the most publicly documented cosmetic dentistry cases of the past decade. The before-and-after has become a reference point for patients considering full veneer cases.
“What makes the case interesting is the proportion,” Sands says. “The teeth are bright, but they are scaled to her face. That is the part most patients miss when they ask for the same look.”
7. Khloe Kardashian
Khloe Kardashian’s smile is requested almost exclusively by patients seeking width. Her smile arc shows a fuller buccal corridor, the space between the outer teeth and the cheeks when she smiles, which creates a broader visual impression.
8. Zac Efron
Efron’s smile is the male equivalent of Bieber’s in the under-35 demographic. The shape is square-round, the color is natural, and the incisal edges show wear patterns consistent with real teeth.
9. Kylie Jenner
Jenner’s smile has evolved more visibly than almost any in her generation. Sands has been asked about it for years.
“What people request is rarely the earliest version or the most dramatic version,” he says. “They want the middle ground, where the proportions feel balanced.”
10. Margot Robbie
Robbie rounds out the list with what Sands calls a classical smile. The proportions follow the golden ratio cosmetic dentists use as a design guideline, and the shade is bright without being blue-white.
What these ten smiles have in common
Across every name on this list, Sands points to four shared features:
- Proportional tooth shape sized to the patient’s face
- A warm rather than blue-white color
- Visible translucency at the incisal edges
- Slight, intentional variation between teeth
“The smiles people imitate are never the most extreme ones,” he says. “They are the ones that look like they could be real.”
Considering a smile consultation
Dr. Sands practices at 414 North Camden Drive in Beverly Hills. Patients seeking information on smile design consultations can visit his Beverly Hills cosmetic dentistry practice.
