I Spent Years Hating My Crooked Teeth. Here’s What Changed.

Katie BerohnTue, March 24, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC

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How I Finally Learned to Love My SmileKatie Berohn

Most adults have 32 teeth, but our thoughts about our mouths are endless. Welcome to Lip Service, a series exploring the science, self-expression, and statement-making beauty behind being mouthy.

I recently went to Rome and took a picture in front of the Trevi Fountain. The iconic landmark, which is usually so packed that you feel like a sardine in a tin while just trying to get a glimpse of Oceanus, felt eerily empty, like I was on a private tour of the Eternal City. The photo was, for all intents and purposes, perfect. It caught the exact moment I tossed a coin over my shoulder, my outfit looked good, and I appeared to be the only person in Rome. It’s the kind of picture I’ll never be able to re-create, and it was a nearly instant grid post to my Instagram. There’s just one thing: I’m smiling, with my teeth. And I hate my teeth.

I have been on a quest to accept my teeth for most of my life. They could be a lot worse—they are sort of straight, save for my left canine tooth, which sticks out and obscures the incisor next to it. On a bad day, I think my biggest smile makes me look like a jack-o-lantern. On a rare good one, I find my teeth to be slightly vampiric in a potentially hot way. In a world where perfectly straight chiclets are increasingly thought of as a status symbol, I’ve always felt self-conscious about them. And not for nothing, because people have always noticed them.

A few summers ago, I was enjoying a drink al fresco with one of my friends on a summer night in the West Village. The sky was pink and fluffy and dripping golden light across our faces while we laughed about everything. A man sat close by with his preteen son. As they stood to leave, they stopped in front of our table. I looked up, a grin still on my face, and he directed his attention solely at me. “You would be so beautiful,” he said. “If you would just fix your teeth.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder and turned to leave, and I was stunned into silence while my friend shouted after him. Afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about the encounter. I couldn’t stop thinking about the man’s son, either—prepubescent and already learning that it’s okay to tell a random woman what you think she should change about herself.

This is how it often feels to be a woman in America. Men I’ve dated have stared just a little too hard at my teeth across a table. In high school, I mentioned to my then-boyfriend’s stepmom that I hadn’t gotten my wisdom teeth out, and she replied, “I made sure my kids got theirs out to keep their smiles straight,” while watching her eyes linger on my uneven line. A PR person at a work event once told me she only went on Hinge dates with men who have perfect smiles, since crooked teeth “gross her out” (I couldn’t help myself and asked her what she thought of mine, and she turned beet red and said, “Not yours, of course!”). I used to whiten my teeth until my gums burned to try to offset the parts of them I couldn’t change without orthodontic intervention. Every dentist I’ve gone to has presented me with options for a straighter smile unasked. And now, as someone who works in beauty, my appearance ends up taking up more mental space than I’d like it to. I don’t want anyone to feel bad for me—but I’ve never been one with “good teeth.”

Katie Berohn

Milky-white, straight, and perfectly shaped teeth don’t just make someone better looking. They point to good health, cleanliness, and a certain amount of success, something I recently spent a lot of time talking to dentists about for an essay on why we’re so obsessed with mouths right now. If good teeth point to status, vitality, and poise, what do my crooked ones say about me? I shuddered to ask.

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But ask I did. As an experiment, I decided to send a text message to the people I’m closest to, inquiring about what they think of my teeth. “I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about them before,” one of my friends said. “I’m just picturing your smile being big and making me smile,” another said. A few knew my struggles and acknowledged their imperfections. “I’ve always loved your teeth; they’re perfect on you,” my college roommate said. “I feel so attached to your smile; I think I would go into mourning if you changed it.” My best friend since childhood was definitive: “I love them, I think they add character.”

“Character” has always been the upside of my less-than-perfect smile. If there’s one good thing about them, my teeth are uniquely mine. If you know me, you could pick out my grin immediately from a lineup. Growing up, my parents opted out of braces due to the cost and my relatively low need for them in the grand scheme of things. I could waltz into an office right now and get fitted for Invisalign (I’m pretty sure they take Klarna). But watching other people preserve their less-than-perfect grins has held me back. Aimee Lou Wood’s crooked smile was dissected so much when she was on The White Lotus that it othered her. They turned into headlines. “It’s, like, cool, and now I want to stop fucking talking about it,” Wood said in a Sunday Times profile. “Can I talk about my character? Why am I talking about my gnashers? It’s like now I’m just a pair of front teeth.” Many people admired her for not looking the same as everyone else. America’s Next Top Model cycle 6 winner Danielle “Dani” Evans was pressured into closing the gap in her teeth by Tyra Banks, who said she wouldn’t be “marketable” if she didn’t get them fixed. But then in season 15, Chelsey Hersley had her tooth gap widened to more closely resemble model and actress Lauren Hutton—so who even knows what teeth are supposed to look like? Madonna. Slick Woods. Georgia May Jagger. Ayo Edebiri. Dakota Johnson once upon a time. The list goes on.

I am a rigid perfectionist in many ways. I had a perfect GPA in high school, college, and grad school. I work out with the intensity of a pro athlete, staring at myself in the mirror like a psychopath in hopes of doing just one more rep or getting slightly better alignment in a yoga pose. I have a “good outfits” folder on my phone where I put selfies of the combinations of clothing I’ve liked for future reference. I keep a running note full of errors I’ve made at work to cross-check against so I can avoid them in the future. I am in constant pursuit of Katie 2.0.

But I know that if I start to chase perfection in my own face, I’ll fall down the same rabbit hole as many people in my generation, and end up with the homogeneous “Instagram face” aesthetic that has dominated recent years. Whether through FaceTune, contouring, or even surgery, many people delete the features that made them stand out in favor of pillowy lips, catlike eyes, small and chiseled features, and uniform teeth. I don’t want to come out on the other side and not be able to recognize myself.

“Honestly, you have gorgeous teeth,” dentist Michael Apa, the mastermind behind many celebrities’ perfect veneers, once told me unprompted (unlike the one on the West Village patio, this remark was welcome). I protested. “No I don’t,” I said, almost like a knee-jerk reaction, and pointed at my vampire tooth. He shut me down. “Yes, you do. That little crooked tooth gives you a lot of personality. The fact that you smile so big tells me that there’s a lot of confidence behind you, and that’s powerful.” I find myself revisiting that conversation almost as often as I revisit my encounter with the rude man.

I’m trying to embrace my teeth for what they are: crooked, imperfect, and part of who I’ve been for the last 29 years. It might be a journey, but I started with posting the photo of myself at the Trevi Fountain—unedited. After I put it up, I watched the likes and positive comments flow in. It might have been the Italy of it all, but I like to think it had something to do with the way I’m beaming. My smile might not be perfect, but I look happy. And take it from a beauty editor—happiness is the best beauty trick of them all.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”