You might not be a dentist, but you know perfect teeth when you see them. As more and more people (famous or not) have suddenly-perfect smiles, social media has become fixated on “good teeth.” Central to the discussion are veneers—sliver-thin coverings for the teeth, often made from porcelain. A subtle status symbol, veneers represent a market that’s projected to reach $4.6 billion. Bad veneers—teeth that are too straight, too white, too Chiclet-shaped—are like T-shirts plastered in logos: They’re tacky. Good veneers—teeth that show discernment and restraint in color, shape, and straightness—are like a Loro Piana cashmere sweater: They’re quiet luxury.
Decidedly in the “good veneer” column are patients of dentist Michael Apa. Clients of his sought-after dental practice, Apa Aesthetic—now with four airy, spalike locations—include the Jenner sisters, Chloë Sevigny, and the Olsen twins. (Publicity-shy patients can use a back entrance and a private floor.) Apa has over 600,000 followers on Instagram. He wears head-to-toe Brunello Cucinelli. He collects Ferraris. Consider him the Tom Brady of teeth.
Apa decided he wanted to become a dentist at five years old. “I remember growing up a little insecure, a little overweight,” he says. “The one thing people would always compliment me on was my smile. I figured out [later in life] that all of that positive reinforcement toward my smile and my teeth gave me such confidence in areas that I didn’t really have.” He chased his dream relentlessly by shadowing his local dentist and pursuing a connection with Larry Rosenthal, DDS, one of the most renowned aesthetic dentists at the time (Rosenthal now works at Apa’s New York practice). Today, Apa can make it look like you’ve had subtle work done on your face, even when you haven’t. If you’ve always wanted lip filler, Apa can arch and lengthen your front teeth ever so slightly to give the illusion of bigger lips. If you’ve always wanted buccal fat removal, Apa can subtly slope your teeth inward to create more hollow cheeks. And if you’ve always wanted cheek filler, Apa can “kick out” your smile, extending the sides just a touch, to create more volume and a bigger smile. “He’s so talented at his craft,” says Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model and actress Brooks Nader. “He gave me an insane smile. I love to smile in general, so he kind of tuned it up a little bit.”
Good veneers can also subtly communicate youth, Apa says. Teeth serve as the support system for the bottom third of your face, and begin to wear down over time. Smiles may become smaller, jaws weaker. Veneers can help to fortify your face structure. As people age, teeth also become discolored. Apa can tell the difference between shades of white better than an interior designer choosing paint swatches. Even if a patient wants a high-wattage movie-star smile, Apa Aesthetics ceramists will layer multiple shades of porcelain, blending levels of opacity to make the teeth look bright white, but in a multifaceted, natural way.
With veneers exploding in popularity, Apa has become something of a fixer. “In 2010, let’s say, [fixing bad veneers] used to be 10 percent of my practice,” Apa says. “Now it’s 60 to 70 percent.” Apa thinks that social media and more dentists cutting corners to drive down prices may have brought about this uptick. Whether he’s fixing poor veneers or starting from scratch, a smile redesign with Apa costs a cool $5,000 per tooth, and he has a 10-tooth minimum. Key to his bespoke approach is fitting every patient with a set of temporaries to get used to their new smile. After they’ve made any adjustments in a next-day appointment, patients wear the temps for two weeks before he replaces them with hand-painted porcelain. This trial period gives patients the space to edit their mouth in real time. “The number-one failure of any cosmetic procedure is expectations,” Apa says.
Aesthetic dentistry isn’t yet a properly recognized specialty in the dental field. Ryan St. Germain, the executive director of development and alumni relations at NYU’s College of Dentistry, likens it to wagyu beef—currently, anyone with a dental degree can call themselves an aesthetic dentist. Apa is working with NYU, his alma mater, to expand training opportunities in aesthetic dentistry: He’s invested in a new clinical space called the NYU Apa Aesthetic Suite (slated to open this fall). He also backs the Apa Advanced Clinical Fellowship in Aesthetic Dentistry and the recently renamed Apa Honors Program in Aesthetic Dentistry, which allows students to formally specialize in aesthetic dentistry, like veneers. He and St. Germain hope NYU’s program can help be a catalyst to legitimize aesthetic dentistry as a specialty in the dental industry, in turn elevating the care patients can get from aesthetic dentists. “He’s an accelerator in all ways,” St. Germain says.
“His name carries a lot of value,” says Adam Doyno, director of development at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy Foundation, who has worked on the Dr. Michael Apa Scholarship Fund in Oral Population Health. This scholarship fund provides master’s level scholarships in oral population health.
Apa’s longevity in the game, at 21 years of practice, also makes him Brady-esque. Yet he still finds meaning in the work, a chance to give patients the same confidence he found in good teeth. “I’ve met tons of people who, every time they speak, their hand immediately goes in front of their mouth—or when they smile, you can see their lip shakes because they’re so trained to not show their teeth,” he says. “It’s one of those things that if it bothers you, it will inhibit so many different parts of your life. To be able to take it away in three hours, and actually produce something that looks real…that’s a superpower. I truly feel that way.”
A version of this story appears in the August 2024 issue of ELLE.
Katie Berohn is the Beauty Assistant at Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day and Prevention magazines, all part of the Hearst Lifestyle Group. She graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a major in journalism and minor in technology, arts, and media, and earned her Master’s Degree at NYU’s Graduate Program of Magazine Journalism. In addition, Katie has held editorial internships at Denver Life Magazine, Yoga Journal, and Cosmopolitan, a digital editorial internship at New York Magazine’s The Cut, a social good fellowship at Mashable, and has freelanced for HelloGiggles. _When she’s not obsessing over the latest skincare launch or continuing her endless search for the perfect shade of red nail polish, Katie can be found in a hot yoga class, trying everything on the menu at New York’s newest restaurant, or hanging out at a trendy wine bar with her friends.