An enormous facade featuring the gaping mouths of happy, probably veneered patients flanks a double-doored entrance. Inside, a waiting room and treatment booths are arranged beneath an unfinished ceiling but also a chandelier raining down black and white pearls. Dr. T explains that it’s vestigial; the space formerly housed a bead store. “I love to bling,” she says, though it’s evident from the handbag that remains on her shoulder at all times; a black leather tote with floral motifs and the name TAMAR in rhinestones. “Isaac makes fun of me!”
Isaac is Isaac Hakimi, Dr. T’s husband and Pop On’s co-founder, who has owned the dental laboratory that now serves as Pop On’s nucleus since 2008. Now, on the same floor, around 50 devices that look like orange glass microwaves bake batch after batch of teeth covers. The two founders were college sweethearts—he business, she dental—and Dr. T openly delights in the fact that she brought him over to her line of work. Together they married cosmetic dentistry with direct-to-consumer product.
“It’s like my dream come true,” Dr. T told me. After graduating from dental school at Columbia, she saw patients at the university until founding Pop On. “It’s not one or two patients in a chair each day,” she says. “You have an opportunity to empower people to smile on [a much greater] scale.”
“You really feel like you’re affecting and changing people’s lives,” Hakimi added. He wore a salesman’s smile, and a tie. Together, they mint about 1,000 veneers, or 500 mouthfuls, each day.
Pop On’s product looks like a pageant flipper for adults, but it caters to a much wider demographic: Those who want a perfect smile regardless of their current oral situation. The ideal candidate is any person with at least four teeth. (“Do you have at least four teeth?” is the only question asked in a virtual pre-screening of prospective patients.) A waxier plastic is used to fill gaps, so each veneer comes as a full upper or lower unit, which requires some getting used to. They can withstand food and drink, unless the food is sticky or the drink is hotter than lukewarm. While wearing their units, some clients may speak with a lisp. To them, Dr. T cheerfully suggests singing in the shower. This, she says, helps the tongue acclimate to the new surroundings.
Pop On is one of a few DTC businesses that can render at-home impressions into plastic veneers. There’s Shiny Smile Veneers, in Texas, and TruSmile Veneers, also in Texas. Pop On customers can choose from three colors: Hollywood white, natural white, or mature tan. The impression kit or in-office scan costs up to $679 not including perennially available coupons that bring the cost closer to $500. Financing options are also available. Once your scan is approved, subsequent copies can be ordered for $99, making them, if not disposable, seamlessly easy to replace. Compared to standard porcelain veneers, this new guard more closely resembles Charles Pincus’ original product, composite caps that snapped on to teeth and lasted as long as a few days. Contemporary cosmetic dentists seem less than nostalgic for them.
