Feeling the pressure to look the very best you’ve ever looked – and maybe ever will – is perhaps part and parcel of the build up to your wedding day. For me, it manifested as a deep desire not to have a dermatitis flare-up, and to finally fix the self-inflicted gap between my teeth. So, putting my beauty editor hat on, I constructed a four-month timetable within which to sort out the two things I was sure would make the biggest difference in photographs, and to how I felt overall. Spoiler: I was right. Let me break it down.
Composite bonding and teeth whitening
Six years ago, I decided to get adult braces. I chose the white, ceramic variation, thinking they would be less obvious on my 25-year-old face. The moment they were placed, I knew I had been woefully naive: train tracks are noticeable whatever colour you pick.
You’d think, two years later, when they eventually came off, that I would be diligent about wearing my top and bottom retainers each night. Not so! By the time my wedding rolled around, my teeth had shifted to the point where a little gap had emerged between two of my right-side teeth. Sometimes, when excited, I’d whistle through it while talking. I hated it.
Happily, Dr Manrina Rhode, a West London-based dentist and clinic owner, told me she could fix my problem in one visit with a little composite bonding and a take-home whitening kit. “Composite bonding is a cosmetic dental procedure where a tooth-coloured resin is artistically sculpted onto the teeth to enhance their shape, size or colour,” Rhode explains, when I asked her exactly how she was planning to bridge the space. It’s a minimally invasive procedure and can be done on one or multiple teeth, using a composite material made of resin mixed with quartz or silica for strength and durability.
Sometimes, when applied over-enthusiastically, composite bonding can make teeth look blocky – like little white headstones. This can also happen when a dentist uses too much material, if the composite doesn’t have a believable amount of translucency, or if the shade doesn’t match your natural teeth.
After a little (well-executed) composite bonding on my right tooth, the gap was gone. The effect was as transformative as a good haircut, and I knew I wouldn’t be picking over pictures of myself, lamenting over that small – but very noticeable – space.
The next step was to lighten and brighten. Wary of the very old Crest White strips languishing in my bathroom, I asked Dr Rhode how to quickly get my teeth up to code. She suggested a take-home whitening kit with gumshield-like trays created from scans of my mouth. You squirt a hydrogen peroxide solution into the trays and wear them for an hour every day for two weeks. I was religious about using them and noticed results after the second or third day. By September 20, my smile was – and I can say this objectively – perfect.
Regular facials
The second focus of my wedding prep was my face. I didn’t want to tweak, freeze or fill anything, but I did want my skin to look like a freshly glazed pastry. Because my skin skews extra dry with a tendency towards eczema, I had to find a facial that improved texture and tone without irritating my very fussy skin barrier. Sarah Chapman’s Bespoke Facial proved to be just the thing. In the celebrity facialist’s Skinesis Clinic, I had gentle exfoliation, LED therapy, cheek kneading massage and, at one appointment, exosomes.
“Exosomes are tiny, extra-cellular nano vesicles – very small particles that can penetrate easily and are involved in cell-to-cell communication,” Chapman explained. Think of them like clever couriers carrying biological information between cells, all the while carrying proteins, lipids, peptides and other genetic material along with them. Most impressively, exosomes accelerate skin healing and skin regeneration.
These ultra-reparative, anti-inflammatory messengers target skin texture and hydration, as well as supporting collagen and elastin production, and maintaining the integrity of the skin barrier. After that one appointment, I noticed my skin feeling stronger and more robust – even as we approached the stress-inducing week of the wedding.
Spending an hour and a half in the hands of one of Chapman’s therapists is a treat in and of itself, but it also did something fundamentally good to my skin that I couldn’t do at home. I visited once a month for the four months leading up to my wedding, and it showed. My hyperpigmentation improved, and my face was noticeably less puffy. The accumulation of fluid that sat beneath my eyes and within my jawline seemingly disappeared. My skin was softer, smoother and visibly brighter. Exactly what I wanted.
Extras
Honourable mentions for other things that made a tangible difference: religiously washing my make-up brushes once a week, the magnesium spray that sent me to (beauty) sleep each night, and regular trims at Hershesons Fitzrovia. And one final shoutout for my trusty at-home LED devices, the Dr Dennis Gross mask and Current Body helmet.
