CATEGORY 126 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST REALITY BITES Big, bad mouth – a billion dollar rebellion in the smile game A weird and world-shifting view down the lucrative jaws of a booming new era where influencers and entrepreneurs push the limits in online dental shopping, Rebel Smile-wear and Hip Hop orthodontics. Jade Richardson By Jade Richardson By 2026, online clear aligner retailer, Byte, had racked up 169 adverse event reports with the TGA, giving it dubious prestige at the top of the list of Class 1 device complaints. Cases included reports of bone loss, tooth discolouration, chipped and broken teeth, bleeding gums, gum recession, pain, enamel loss, migraines, jaw joint pain and grinding, broken crowns and fillings, periodontal disease, mouth ulcers, overbites, tooth loss, locked jaw and a cut tongue, as The Age reported, just after Byte packed up shop. Byte had been heavily marketing its fast, cheap, mail-based clear aligner smile correcting business through influencers and online campaigns featuring financially incentivized social media crew, spruiking their experience and recruiting their followers to pursue home shopping dental miracles without a hefty price tag. Or visiting a dentist. The model is now being adopted by a host of other new players in online dental shopping, including offshore micro businesses specializing in tooth and jaw jewellery, often known as grills, or the more hip, grillz, which can be ordered in a few clicks without ever seeing another human, even in the advertising – and much bigger fish, with billion dollar business plans, are circling the waters, as we shall soon discover. It goes like this: see the ad, click on the website, shop around for home delivered clear aligners or jaw ornaments, select preferences, pay up, provide your address, receive a box containing Play-Doh-like clay, mouth trays and a return envelope for your impressions, from which – you trust – the company will create the bespoke aligners, (if you’re playing old school) or grills, if you’re on trend, of your dreams. In the case of Byte, an initial home delivered mould kit for a set of clear aligners cost just $29. One customer told The Age, “Then after that, you start getting the hard sell. And I mean, they call you around the clock.” This Australian woman was trying to fix her teeth before her wedding. An orthodontist had quoted $8000 for a treatment plan over two years. Byte quoted $3,300, with results in eight weeks. You can see the temptation. The Australian Dental Association made warning noises about the efficacy of the treatment and the reliability of the moulds. But meanwhile, around other corners, an entirely different animal was sniffing gold in the online dental game. Using mail-order, direct to customer retail, hi-end 3D scanners, printing and often third world manufacturing resources, a fertile and even less regulated new scene in mouth jewellery has used the same model but sidestepped the medical and legal inconveniences by selling tooth and jaw fashion in an intoxicatingly free space. Full mouth grills in gold, fake gold, black, obsidian, silver, diamante, with ornamental stars, fangs, love hearts, butterflies, sparkles, letters spelling out words or brand names can be ordered online in a few clicks, with minimal effort and zero dental oversight, for permanent or occasional wear. Some of these, hi on AI and celebrity endorsements, and with Matrix-style websites, are aiming quite a bit higher than Byte. They may request their online shoppers to order digital scans from a dentist purely for the purposes of forwarding on to their manufacturers of grillz, who could be anyone, anywhere in the world. Many sites do not provide the name, or mention of any person involved in the business at all. They rely completely on their TikTok, Instagram and Youtube influencers to be the faces and authenticators of their brands. Who cares? It works! Until it doesn’t. In the case of Byte, dental experts cautioned that the product was simply never going to be safe. The brand was shut down globally in 2026. But in the world of rebel orthodontics, though the biggest players claim to have dental endorsement, the products are not sold as medical devices – they are simply fashion. No limits required. Dental grills are removable or fixed metal covers, often made from gold (or gold-ish), or silver, worn over the teeth to create a flashy appearance. They are part of what’s anticipated to be a billion dollar craze, already well underway in the USA, with AI applications, and headaches already beginning to pound in the dental industry. Dentists around the world have been updating their own websites with warnings after grills, inset tooth ornaments and other bling has hit craze proportions since 2025. They list enamel damage, decay, infection, broken teeth, gum disease, bad breath, pain – but there’s a giant industry already taking a bite out of oral health and beauty out there. Meet Billy Bob Teeth. California-based sensation, Billy Bob Teeth, is widely believed to be the creation of one Justin Frankel, described by journalists as a serial entrepreneur, and estimated to be sitting on a USD$150
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