Don’t Trust That ‘Veneer Tech’

Tyrisha Ragin wanted an icy-white smile. As she scrolled social media, she found a business run by a charismatic woman known as Princess offering veneers at a price that seemed affordable. In the before-and-after images Princess had posted, her customers looked happy. Plus, Princess herself flashed the grin Ragin hoped to get.

So Ragin, who is 36 and runs a custom-merchandise business from her home in Tennessee, booked an appointment for a set of 20 composite veneers, ten on top and ten on the bottom. Princess requested that she pay up front in full: $1,500 via Cash App. In March, Ragin drove more than seven hours to the Lake Charles, Louisiana, address Princess had provided. When she arrived, the setup concerned her a bit.

“I went there to get a white perfect smile,” Ragin told me. “I had no idea it was in the back of a barbershop.”

Still, she had already paid. A framed certificate on the wall reassured her somewhat, so she sat back and let Princess get to work.

At first, Ragin liked the results. Princess told her not to eat for three hours, so she waited. Four hours into the drive home, Ragin stopped for some grits and eggs, and several veneers tumbled out. She called Princess, who, Ragin says, told her she would send a DIY kit to fix the missing ones. But within a couple of days, a dozen had fallen out. Ragin went to her local dentist, who removed the remaining ones, costing her around $1,300.

Her dentist was relieved that the veneers had been in place for only a short time and that they hadn’t caused permanent damage. “You can’t let anybody play in your mouth,” Ragin says he told her.

A TikTok of this saga, which Ragin posted in late March, has racked up more than 4 million views. (Ragin told me Princess has since refunded her payment.) It’s one of many recent viral videos about subpar experiences with “veneer techs,” a colloquial category of people offering cosmetic-dentistry services like veneers. In one, a woman who went to a Florida veneer tech describes feeling pain afterwards so extreme that she was in tears. In another, a dentist explains how he would have treated a patient’s significant decay with extractions and root canals, rather than covering it with composite veneers.

Here’s the thing: Only licensed dentists can apply veneers in the United States. Not only is the notion of a “veneer tech” meaningless, says Dr. Tricia Quartey, a spokesperson for the American Dental Association, but anyone who is not a licensed dentist and is performing dental services like veneers is doing so illegally.

In some cases, the process has led to legal troubles. Monica Davis, who operated a business called the Veneer Experts in Las Vegas, allegedly without a license, was arrested there in January. After posting bond, she was later arrested near Chicago, where she was also allegedly performing dentistry without a license.

There is good reason for these laws, which are designed to protect patients, dentists told me. Anxiety-nightmare fuel aside, veneers that fall off are the least of the potential problems.

There are two main types of veneers. Porcelain veneers typically require a patient’s teeth to be shaved down with a drill before they can be fit in place. They tend to be the more expensive and longer-lasting variety. Composite-bonded veneers are usually less invasive and work by applying the same resin coating dentists use to fill cavities. They tend not to last as long, and to cost less.

Most veneer techs focus on composite-bonding services. Even so, there’s ample opportunity to create or exacerbate a life-threatening infection, said Dr. Sara Hahn, a Fremont, California, dentist with a substantial following on her veneer-focused TikTok account, @veneercheck.

As with other unlicensed businesses offering medical services, such as the now-shuttered New Mexico spa where a “vampire facial” allegedly infected clients with HIV, a lack of understanding about how infections are transmitted can lead to disaster, Hahn told me. That includes the insufficient sterilization of tools as well as the failure to look for — and the inability to recognize — existing infections like cavities before applying the composite bonding. This is why dentists take X-rays first, she explained.

“If you have underlying dental disease or gum disease, you could block in that bacteria and have an abscess blow up,” Hahn told me. “So you are potentially making people’s dental condition way worse by now masking what’s going on.”

Whenever someone is using a tool to shave down a composite veneer — even if they aren’t altering the underlying tooth — there’s also a risk of permanently damaging the nerves of the teeth, Hahn said. Then there are the biomechanics that need to be factored in, she added. Veneers that are a hair too long could cause jaw problems, for example.

“There’s a lot of biology, chemistry, and physics that go into understanding how the teeth work,” Hahn told me.

Veneers seem to be more popular than ever. Cosmetic dentistry has become big business in the U.S. Last year, it generated more than $7 billion in revenue, a figure that has grown by an average of 3 percent each year since 2018, according to research firm Ibis World.

And while the goal might once have been subtle work, conspicuous — even ostentatious — veneers are now popular among some celebrities, who have increasingly normalized acknowledging them as bragging rights. “Got a bag and fixed my teeth,” Cardi B rapped on 2017’s “Bodak Yellow.” (In March, one popped off when she bit into a “hard-ass bagel.”)

Veneers have become such a regular celebrity rite of passage — pop-culture fixtures like Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Taylor Swift are confirmed or believed to have them — that fans have taken to begging rising stars to keep their natural smile. “I really hope Sabrina Carpenter does not get veneers,” said one creator in a TikTok viewed more than 10 million times. “She has such a cute smile. It’s so unique … Please, Sabrina, if you’re watching this, you don’t need them, girl.” (The “Espresso” singer replied in a comment, “damn i wish i saw this 10 min ago,” followed by a grimacing emoji.)

As with so many hot markets, counterfeits have abounded. When I reached Princess, whose real name is Tyreka Taylor, I asked about the critics who have voiced concerns about her operation given that she is not a licensed dentist. “They are right, which is why I no longer do veneers,” she told me. She added that, until recently, she wasn’t aware she had crossed any lines.

Taylor, who is 36, owns a Lake Charles hairstyling business, Princess Kutz. She first became interested in veneers a few years ago, she said, when she realized she was unhappy with her teeth.

“I was having issues with my own smile,” she told me. “I had a bit of a gap that I wanted to get closed.”

At the time, she lived in Texas and went to three different Houston-area licensed dentists, who each refused to apply composite veneers before addressing her underlying cavities, she said. She saved up about $10,000 and got the necessary root canals, X-rays, and cleanings. When she returned to one dentist for the veneers, she was told they would cost an additional $10,000.

Taylor was frustrated. She heard about a woman who was doing “backwoods braces” (i.e., unlicensed orthodontia) and sought her out. For $1,000, the woman, who worked out of her home, fitted her with metal braces. Taylor was impressed by her hustle — cars were lined up down the block, she said — and by the results.

“It worked. My gap was closed in four months,” she told me. “I started research on how to do veneers. If they line up for braces,” she said of prospective customers, “I know that they would like veneers, too.”

Her research turned up short-term training courses in cities including Atlanta, where there were several options. Taylor declined to say specifically where she had enrolled but said she attended four different programs, each for a couple of days, in Atlanta and in cities in Texas. The programs covered how to apply composite-bonded veneers and, often, how to market a new veneer-tech business online.

Taylor learned that “veneer techs don’t fix cavities,” she said. “All they work on is the cosmetics of the way the teeth look — they make them look pretty.”

In an Atlanta hotel room during her first training program, she told me, she took matters into her own hands, applying and curing her own composite veneers in the mirror. When she saw the results, “I was so happy I cried,” she said.

The programs promised students that, having completed the coursework, they could bill themselves as a “certified veneer tech.” At least one Atlanta program advertised with a slogan that went something like “You don’t have to be a dentist to do veneers,” Taylor said. Some offered a printed certificate. For a total of a week and a half of training across the four programs, Taylor said she paid $20,000.

Among the Atlanta training programs that popped up in my recent search was A List Cosmetics. The business’s site says it offers services including veneers, braces, deep cleanings, fillings, something called “extreme teeth whitening” — and a two-day training program for aspiring veneer techs for $6,000. “Participants in this hands-on 2-day composite veneer course will learn and practice the step-by-step application of cosmetic veneers to beautifully restore the smile line,” according to its marketing materials.

That course, as well as a private composite-veneer training that runs $7,500, has been taught by Brandon Dillard, who maintains an active social-media presence as “Atlanta’s Top Veneer Specialist & Trainer.” Dillard isn’t listed in Georgia’s database of licensed dentists. (Neither A List Cosmetics nor Dillard responded to multiple requests for comment.)

Still, on the business’s website and his Instagram profile, Dillard appears in multiple images and videos dressed in scrubs or a white coat addressing groups of about a dozen trainees in what looks like a conference room. In one clip, the students — nearly all women — wear dental loupes and latex gloves as they familiarize themselves with the tools in front of them. In another, they practice polishing denture models.

In 2020, the Georgia Board of Dentistry issued a consumer alert urging the public to “beware of unlicensed individuals offering dental services.” The Board did not respond to multiple requests for additional comment.

Before the viral videos made her an internet villain, she said, Taylor was a local hero. People would approach her in Walmart or at the gas station and ask if she could squeeze them in for an appointment.

“I enjoy the feeling of making somebody else happy, giving somebody else a smile,” she told me, adding that she would like to go to dental school someday. “To give that feeling to other people became a rush.”

After all, Taylor said, “They couldn’t afford to go to the dentist. Do you think they want to go to a veneer tech?”