‘There are no ugly women, only lazy ones’

mirrorballErnie Wright says it was terribly un-politically correct when she said it, but business magnate Helena Rubinstein’s famous quip ‘there are no ugly women, only lazy ones’ has become true in Britain.

Since her death 50-years-ago, and against all the odds, we’ve become a nation of Hollywood smile narcissists, who are increasingly willing to spend time and money making ourselves look better.

Britain’s top 100 dentists hauled in a record average of almost £10m each last year thanks to vanity work on their patients, new figures have revealed.

Finance provider LDF found turnover by this elite group was up 22% since 2010, with laser whitening, computerised smile analysis and straightening among the top selling treatments.

And the appetite for non dental vanity work is also up; the 10 most popular cosmetic surgery procedures increased by at least 12% from 2013 to 2014.

Facial surgery procedures are the most common and constitute half of the top 10 cosmetic operations bought in the UK. In order of popularity they are eyelid surgery, face lift, nose job, brow lift and ear correction.

Dentists are naturally seen as the authority in facial cosmetic treatments, so added to the surge in dental cosmetics, what an incredible time to be a dentist!

Five tactics to get in on the cosmetic boom

  1. List the cosmetic dental treatments and their prices in your area and read all available patient reviews online
  2. List the cosmetic surgery procedures and their prices in your area and read patient reviews
  3. List the beauty treatments and prices in your area and read patient reviews
  4. Formulate a menu, making no distinction between dental and non-dental cosmetic procedures, with prices that correspond with your brand and positioning. Do not affect a different brand for these offerings
  5. Add a facial cosmetics’ page to your website and move all your dental cosmetic treatments here, so that eyelid surgery and tooth whitening occupy the same space. This will subtly emphasise that all facial cosmetic procedures are the natural realm of you, the dentist, as opposed to the motley collection of local charlatans who only do bits and bobs.

Get in touch if you’d like help on broadening your cosmetic proposition. Call 0845 299 7209 or email [email protected].

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