By Erica

Your mouth says it all. It is the first thing people notice about you. It’s your calling card. Not just for what comes out of it, though that's critical. But also for what it says about you. Your smile transmits information about your attitude. And your teeth say something about how much you care about yourself. We didn't make that up. That's what studies have shown.
 
As we get older, of course, like everything else our mouths change. Lines (and even craters) appear. Lips may not be as full as they once were. Gums may recede. Teeth may yellow, discolor and shift. Quirks that may have been marks of our individuality when we were young may become more prominent and less pleasing as we age. At the same time, our tendency to smile broadly and laugh loudly at what tickles us remains the same. So there may be a disconnect between what we want to say about ourselves, the image we wish to project, and what we actually look like.
 
I have always known that our mouths and teeth were important for our overall health. But I didn't realize how important they were to our image. I learned that recently from my dentist, Dr. Bruce Levin at The Rockefeller Dental Group, who serves many people in the Lustre demographic. He told me about an 83-year-old patient, still active as a docent at the Metropolitan Museum, who recently got a full set of veneers. It changed her life. She had always dreamed of whiter, straighter teeth. She felt like a new woman. She was laughing more, going out more. She felt reborn, proud to smile again.
 
He then showed me some before and after pictures of folks like us. (See the smile gallery here). Their willingness to show themselves publicly on this website speaks volumes about how confident they are in their new image. The differences are startling. These folks were transformed.  The after pictures look natural and the people seem revitalized. No plastic surgery, just whitening, straightening, caps, or resurfacing with porcelain. Maybe enhancing one’s smile is the single most impactful (and often painless) nonsurgical change we can do for ourselves.   
 
Our mouths will always communicate our joy and our displeasure. What we now see is that our mouths and our teeth also reveal who we are: vibrant, healthy, strong, and above all--confident.