Seeing Green in Pearly Whites

Kathryn Merrill wanted a beautiful smile to go along with her new-and-improved nose and liposuction-slimmed chin. So the 47-year-old Santa Ana resident headed to the BriteSmile center in Irvine to have years of coffee stains removed from her slightly yellowing teeth.

After a cursory exam to make sure her teeth and gums were healthy, a dentist applied a protective solution to her gums, smeared sunscreen on her lips, put a 15% hydrogen peroxide gel on her teeth and activated the whitening process with an intense blue gas-plasma light.

Merrill emerged an hour and a half later with a white, toothy grin. “I’ve always liked to smile, and now I’ll like to smile even more,” said Merrill, who paid $500 to have pearly whites like Julia Roberts.

Driven by vanity and by dentists looking for more sources of income, teeth whitening has become a $600-million industry that is growing 15% to 20% a year, said Joe Carrick, a San Diego dentist and former president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry.

An estimated 1.2 million Americans annually use over-the-counter bleaching kits, custom-fitted bleaching trays, whitening gels or undergo laser or light treatments in dental offices.

“There’s a whole movement taking place from fix-me dentistry to transform-me dentistry, from fill-my-cavity to change-my-smile,” said Alex Mandossian, director of the American Society for Dental Aesthetics in New York City, an international organization for cosmetic dentists.

The road to shiny teeth, however, is sometimes fraught with discomfort. Merrill, for instance, had to take several Advils afterward to soothe pain in her teeth. The hydrogen peroxide and carbamide peroxide gels used in whitening treatments also can burn soft tissue, said Kenneth Burrell of the American Dental Assn.

Perhaps nowhere is the demand for the perfect smile greater than in Southern California, the land of BMWs, bleached blonds and silicone-enhanced breasts. Not surprisingly, several teeth-whitening companies make their homes or have significant operations here.

BriteSmile Inc. of Lester, Pa., has opened six teeth-whitening centers--four of them in the Southern California cities of Irvine, Pasadena, Beverly Hills and La Jolla. The company aims to create a national chain of teeth-whitening centers.

Armed with $15 million from a recent private stock offering, it plans to open 14 more centers by the end of March. The company has also recruited 80 dentists to install the BriteSmile system in their offices at the same time, and hopes to ink deals with 217 dentists by spring.

“We’re in an age where a lot of people want to look good and feel good, especially the boomers,” said Cheryl Lester, BriteSmile’s vice president of marketing. “It’s a lot easier to get your teeth whitened than to work out six months at the gym.”

So far, the company has piled up losses since concentrating on its teeth-whitening business in 1998. And some experts question whether consumers will flock to BriteSmile centers. “I think people would rather go to a dentist they know and trust to have their teeth whitened,” said David N. Bardwell, head of cosmetic dentistry at Tufts University.

BriteSmile also is encountering aggressive competitors hoping to sell their own lasers, lights, gels and trays to dentists. (Laser systems require FDA approval; light systems do not.)

Irvine-based Premier Laser Systems Inc. recently introduced the BluLaze laser that can whiten teeth in an hour--about the same as BriteSmile. The system, which also can harden fillings twice as fast as existing methods, sells for $5,000, about 40% cheaper than other whitening lasers, Premier chief executive Colette Cozean said.

Dental/Medical Diagnostic Systems Inc. of Westlake Village, a manufacturer of high-technology dental equipment and related products, has come out with the Apollo Elite, a light-and-gel teeth-whitening system for dentists that works faster than BriteSmile’s, chief executive Robert Gurevitch said. In the first half of 1999, Dental/Medical posted sales of more than $21 million, surpassing its total revenue for all of last year.

Other laser and light companies include American Dental Technologies Inc. of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Den-Mat Corp. of Santa Maria, which makes the Rembrandt line of whitening toothpastes, bleaching gels and a new light-and-gel system that company executives said whitens teeth in 30 minutes.

Challenging the laser and light businesses are competitors offering teeth-whitening gels and trays. Discus Dental Inc. of Culver City makes the trays and gels that dentists give their patients, who wear the custom-fitted, bleach-filled mouth guards for anywhere from four days to two weeks. Discus manufactures bleaching products such as Nite White and Day White.

In the battle for America’s canines and incisors, the gel-and-tray treatments cost less--about $250 to $500 compared with $500 to $2,000 for laser and light treatments--and are generally gentler and sometimes more effective.

“With one laser or light treatment, you probably won’t get the same results as the slower but more dependable at-home whitening treatment” supervised by a dentist, said Van Haywood, a professor of dentistry at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and a bleaching expert.

Whitening treatments, which have not been found to harm tooth enamel, keep teeth sparkling on average from one to three years. They are generally not covered by dental insurance.

Regardless of the procedure, the industry in general should benefit from competition that figures to raise awareness and grow the market, said Bonnie Feldman, a health-care analyst at investment bank Sutro & Co.

BriteSmile has spread the gospel, having launched an ambitious $20-million advertising and marketing campaign. In an interesting twist, it has devoted nearly half its ad budget to radio, relying heavily on testimonials by disc jockeys and radio talk show hosts, including Bill Handel of KFI-AM (640). The spots, which run on 20 stations in eight cities during early-morning and afternoon commuting hours, have won converts, marketing vice president Lester said.

Radio generates about 1,000 inquiries a week, she said.

The company’s advertising strategy makes sense, said Glenn Rifkin, co-author of “Radical Marketing,” which discusses marketing techniques. “A lot of deejays have loyal listeners, and tapping into that community is a great way to build a brand,” he said. “Radio tends to be a more affordable way to create buzz.”

In June, the company partnered with Orthodontic Centers of America Inc., manager of nearly 500 orthodontic offices worldwide, to have BriteSmile systems placed in at least 10 orthodontist offices by year’s end. It recently entered into a joint venture with a Japanese company to penetrate that market and hopes to have systems in 8,000 dental offices in 15 countries by 2009.

BriteSmile has had some problems closer to home. The firm started in 1984 in Salt Lake City as Ion Laser Technology, a small company that sold scientific, industrial, and later, lasers for dental use. In May 1998, the company apparently became strapped for cash, sending letters asking several vendors to accept payments of 50 cents on the dollar “in order to maintain the continued viability of ILT,” according to the correspondence.

“They come in and run up great big accounts receivable and then walked away from it,” said Pete Haak, owner of the Turning Center, a Salt Lake City machine shop, who was owed $7,000 and later made an out-of-court settlement for less than he was owed.

Chairman Anthony Pilaro, a multimillionaire businessman who became majority shareholder in 1996, declined to comment. Chief Executive John Reed, who came on board in June, said he “didn’t know anything about the old company.”

BriteSmile, which has 100 employees, posted loses of nearly $21 million in its last two fiscal years, and lost $3.5 million on sales of $874,000 in its most recent quarter, ended June 30. Its stock, by contrast, has surged more than eight-fold--to $7.25 Tuesday on the American Stock Exchange--in the last 12 months.

Consumer trends should put a grin on the faces of BriteSmile and other teeth-whitening executives, said Robert Frank, a Cornell University economist and author of “Luxury Fever.”

“If I was going to make a bet, I’d say we’re going to see more teeth whitening than less,” he said. “This is a very competitive country and while appearance doesn’t matter for all jobs, it does matter for some. If this can give people an edge, they’ll do it.”

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BriteSmile at a Glance

* Business: Teeth whitening

* Headquarters: Lester, Pa. (moving to Walnut Creek, Calif., in November)

* Employees: 100

* Chief executive: John Reed, 58

* Southern California centers: Irvine, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, La Jolla

* Tuesday stock close: $7.25, down 50 cents

* Market: American Stock Exchange

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Financial performance, in millions

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Sources: Bloomberg News, BriteSmile Inc.