The dangers and delusions of the veneer tech

Unlicensed grifters are promising beautiful smiles, but may be ruining unsuspecting victims’ teeth instead.

Ralph Jones’s teeth were starting to fall out.

The Illinois-based tattoo artist said he would rarely smile in photos because of how his teeth looked. "They just started decaying and falling out, and over the course of the years, it just started making my appearance look pretty bad," Jones told CBS Chicago in April.

Eventually, Jones decided to take action and began researching veneers — thin coverings, generally composite or porcelain, that are placed over existing teeth for cosmetic reasons, like correcting discoloration or misalignments. Composite veneers are made of a tooth-colored resin material, while porcelain is made of much stronger material and can last longer.

Jones’s sister came across The Veneer Experts on Instagram and she referred him to their services. He was pleased with the customer reviews he saw on their page and with what they were charging. Porcelain veneers can be quite expensive, and can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 per tooth. At that time, he wasn’t able to “afford $40,000 on a new set of teeth,” he told What I’m Reading. A full set of composite veneers from The Veneer Experts would only cost him $2,700, which sounded much more reasonable to him. 

Jones went to The Veneer Experts office in Schaumburg, Illinois where he had a consultation with Monica Davis, the owner of the company. According to Jones, she told him she was certified to perform this work and that she also taught courses. “I have to be certified to do tattoos, so I asked her about her certifications as well,” he said.

Jones felt comfortable with her responses, and would later return for the procedure. Within days of his veneer placement, however, Jones said he woke up to chipped teeth. Composite veneers don’t last as long as porcelain, but are still expected to last at least several years and certainly through the week after getting them installed. “When my front tooth chipped, that’s when my sister told me, ‘You need to get it checked out.’ But when we called [Davis], we couldn’t get in touch with her. We got ‘wrong number,’ disconnected phone lines,” he explained.

Jones would later find out that Davis wasn’t licensed to administer veneers, even though he was under the impression that she was, and had performed his dental work illegally. She was recently arrested and charged with performing dental work without a license  — a felony in Illinois. Before that, Davis was arrested in Nevada on similar charges. In Las Vegas, she was accused of fusing a patient’s teeth together, making it impossible for them to floss.

The Veneer Techs

If you frequent social media, you may have already heard of the “veneer tech” — individuals using social media to promote their services as dental professionals who can place veneers in patients’ mouths. It can be lucrative, with some charging up to $2,000 or $3,000 for a full set of veneers for a few hours of work. Some companies even offer courses to teach others how to become veneer techs, like the Atlanta-based A-List Cosmetics, which offers a two-day composite veneer course with a registration fee of $6,000 and a “certificate of completion” when finished.

However, the certificate is not considered credible. Dr. Tricia Quartey, a spokeswoman for the American Dental Association and a practicing dentist in New York, pointed out that just because someone can print out a certificate, it does not mean they are qualified to operate on your mouth. 

“I want to make it very clear that dentists are the only ones who should be doing veneers,” Quartey told What I’m Reading. A two-day certification course, even if purportedly taught by someone with a dental degree, does not exist, she explained.

Her main concern is that these individuals are not qualified to examine teeth before placing veneers. “They're not doing exams to see if you have decay, and if you put a veneer on a tooth that is already decayed, you can make the situation worse,” Quartey said. She explained that patients risk irreversible damage to the tooth itself, nerve damage and infection by having dental work performed by people who don’t know what they are doing. Sometimes, if left untreated, a tooth infection can lead to death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

When asked questions about their veneer tech course, A-List Cosmetics stopped returning a request for comment.

Though states have warned against unlicensed dental work for years, there's recently been a slew of social media posts from both so-called veneer techs themselves and their dissatisfied customers. 

One victim went on Facebook Live detailing her experience with The Veneer Fairy in Tampa, Florida. After her veneers were placed, she described an intense pain in her mouth that kept her up all night. She said the veneer tech encouraged her to go to the emergency room as they were trying to pull them out of her mouth. She later found out she had an infection; what’s more, the veneers are still in her mouth. The Veneer Fairy has since rebranded to Enhanced Smilesss, and is still administering veneers to people in the Tampa area.

The Instagram page for Enhanced Smilesss.

Actual dentists have been calling out these veneer techs online. Dr. Ashley Brede Ciapciak, a general dentist in Needham, Massachusetts, has created a TikTok playlist specifically about this phenomenon — causing one veneer tech to change their page to private. 

“There's a reason us dentists go to school for so long and there's a reason what you're doing is illegal,” Ciapciak said in one video. “In every single state, what you're doing is considered assault and battery because there is no licensure to do ‘composite veneers’ unless you're a dentist.” 

It makes sense why some groups would seek out cheaper options for this type of dental work. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, underrepresented groups may be unable to afford the out of pocket costs for dental care or may not have insurance. Since veneers are typically cosmetic and not generally covered by insurance, getting them can be pricey. However, cheaper is not always better — and in this case, it may be illegal.

Quartey emphasized the importance of doing research before getting veneers. She said there’s a “very easy” way to find out if someone is qualified to administer them. “Anybody with a license, you should be able to search [for] their license,” she explained. “So if you're going to somebody and you're concerned that they might not be a licensed dentist, that is what I would do.” 

Once the veneers are placed on a patient’s teeth, they can take considerable effort to remove. Jones, for instance, still has the composite veneers from The Veneer Experts on his teeth.

“I haven’t gotten it fixed yet,” he said. “I’m trying to find a dentist who is able to get them off to get it fixed.”