Six Month Smiles clear braces are designed for patients 16 years and older who require a more robust treatment than clear aligners but still want a comfortable, discreet option.
Using their proprietary clear brackets and archwires, Six Month Smiles braces can straighten crooked teeth, small gaps, and other misalignments in an average of six months. They even offer a combination treatment of clear aligners and braces for patients who want or need the discretion of clear aligners on their top arch and the power of braces on the bottom one.
In this guide, you’ll find all of Six Month Smiles’ clear braces advantages, drawbacks, and defining features, so you can decide if they are right for you.
Table of Contents
Pros and Cons of Six Month Smiles Braces
Pros
Nearly Undetectable:
Clear braces and archwires are far more discreet than metal ones.Fast Treatment:
Patients can complete their treatment in as little as four months.More Affordable:
At $3,500–$5,000, treatment is less expensive than other orthodontic solutions.Choose Your Provider:
You get to choose your own dentist, who will manage and oversee your treatment.Mix ‘n’ Match:
Your dentist can combine Six Month Smiles clear braces and clear aligners to create a truly custom treatment plan.
Cons
Not Orthodontist-Managed:
Six Month Smiles is a treatment meant for general dentists who don’t specialize in straightening teeth. Their team of orthodontists will help design your treatment, but your dentist will administer and manage it.Prone to Staining:
The clear plastic brackets are susceptible to stains and may make your teeth look discolored if you don’t care for them properly.Monthly Check-Ins:
The monthly in-person appointments might be inconvenient if your schedule is already full.Only Treats Cosmetic Issues:
Six Month Smiles braces are only designed to handle minor malocclusions, so they won’t work if you have severe bite problems or misaligned back teeth.
How Do Six Month Smiles Braces Work?
Dr. Ryan Swain created Six Month Smiles for general dentists to offer their patients with minor misalignments a fast solution to straighten their teeth. A Six Month Smiles orthodontist approves each plan to help ensure proper bracket and archwire placement.
During your consultation, your dentist will take photos and X-Rays to see if you’re a good candidate for treatment. If so, they will also take scans of your teeth before sending everything to Six Month Smiles’ lab.
A Six Month Smiles lab technician will pre-position your brackets in an indirect bonding tray, making it quick and easy for your dentist to place them on your teeth. They’ll package bonding trays, appropriate tooth-colored wires, ties, and anything else your dentist needs in your Patient Tray Kit.
The appointment to apply your braces takes about an hour. Once they’re on, your dentist will review your essential wear and care instructions — most importantly, brushing and flossing your teeth regularly and rinsing with water after meals to prevent cavities and staining.
After that, you’ll have check-in appointments every four weeks for simple adjustments. When your treatment is finished, you’ll have to wear retainers, just like any other orthodontic treatment.
What Sets Six Month Smiles Apart From Other Options?
Six Month Smiles don’t make the only clear braces on the market, so you might be wondering what makes them unique. Six Month Smiles specifically created brackets and wires to help general dentists precisely and efficiently achieve small-scale orthodontic treatment goals for their patients. Every aspect of treatment is designed for cosmetically focused cases.
Another feature that sets Six Month Smiles apart is their wires. These tooth-colored, shape-memory archwires (called Lucid Lok™) are highly active and provide consistent force to straighten and align teeth gently, minimizing the need for enamel reduction in short-term orthodontic cases.
Plus, Six Month Smiles is the only in-office treatment that offers both clear aligners and clear braces explicitly with an expedited treatment time. Other clear aligners offer express treatment for minor misalignments or have combination treatment, but none can match Six Month Smiles’ efficiency.
Six Month Smiles Braces Breakdown
Six Month Smiles is quite similar to traditional orthodontics in that a dental professional oversees your treatment and makes adjustments during monthly follow-up visits.
It’s important to remember, though, that Six Month Smiles is an expedited cosmetic treatment, used to correct minor issues and create a more flattering smile. As a result, Six Month Smiles is not meant for patients with bite issues or severe misalignments. Dentists often recommend it for patients who have mild crowding or spacing in their front teeth or who had braces in the past and have experienced dental shifting since then.
In this section, we’ll cover some of Six Month Smiles braces’ key features to better understand everything they have to offer.
Appearance
Six Month Smiles appeals to many patients because the clear brackets and tooth-colored archwires are far more discreet than metal braces.
For an even less noticeable look, your dentist might use Six Month Smiles’ aligners and braces simultaneously, with aligners on top and braces on the bottom.
Since they require more hardware, clear braces are still more noticeable than clear aligners, but they’re still fairly discreet.
Cost
Six Month Smiles treatment costs on average between $3,500–$5,000, which makes it slightly cheaper than Invisalign and traditional braces, yet pricier than services that deliver clear aligners to your home, like Byte and AlignerCo.
Many insurance plans don’t cover adult orthodontics, but it’s still worth looking into. If your plan does cover adults, your insurance will pay for a portion of the cost, just as it would with traditional braces. It’s worth mentioning that most plans only cover one round of orthodontics per person, per lifetime. If you have already had orthodontic treatment paid for with this plan, they won’t cover it again.
If you can’t pay your full treatment price right off the bat, don’t worry. Six Month Smiles has an in-house financing option called Six Month Smiles® Everyone™, which increases accessibility for patients by stretching out your payments over time. According to their website, financing starts as low as $399 down and $89 per month and they approve every patient.
Your dentist may also offer payment plans or partner with third-party financing companies like CareCredit. Some may require a down payment or credit check, and you may be subject to higher interest rates if you have below-average credit.
Comfort
As with other braces, you will experience mild discomfort for a few days after your dentist places your Six Month Smiles braces, and likely after each adjustment too. Your teeth will feel sore, and it might be uncomfortable to chew for a little while, so try to eat soft foods for a day or two after each appointment. However, your mouth is resilient and will feel normal in no time.
During your treatment, your brackets or archwire may occasionally irritate the inside of your lips or cheeks. Orthodontic wax placed over the offending spot will help your mouth heal while it gets used to the braces. If your archwire is digging into your cheek, give your dentist a call to see if they can trim it.
Maintenance
Six Month Smiles braces are made of plastic, so they can absorb the color of food and drinks. To help keep your brackets from getting stained during treatment, be sure to brush and floss well right after meals. Limiting heavily pigmented foods and drinks like red wine, coffee, berries, and tomato-based sauces will also help. In addition to causing other major health problems, smoking will also stain your clear braces and teeth. If you haven’t already quit, now’s a perfect time to try!
Keeping your teeth clean while wearing braces will also prevent cavities around your brackets. If you don’t brush and floss regularly, you might also develop white spots on your teeth where the enamel has demineralized. These spots aren’t decay (yet) but can quickly break through the enamel. Not maintaining proper oral hygiene can also contribute to gum disease, which, if left untreated, can cause bleeding gums and eventual tooth loss.
Who Is An Ideal Candidate for Six Month Smiles?
The good news is that most adult patients are good candidates for Six Month Smiles braces, since they can handle everything from crowding and gaps between teeth to anterior (front teeth) crossbites, deep bites, and over-erupted teeth. As long as you don’t show signs of active dental or periodontal disease, you can probably get Six Month Smiles treatment.
Six Month Smiles is a great option for people who want clear braces but don’t want to wait up to two years to finish treatment. However, patients with severe alignment or bite issues involving their back teeth may not be a good fit. The clear brackets are less durable than those used for traditional braces and can break more easily. Severe misalignments may put too much pressure on the brackets and break them, delaying or even preventing appropriate treatment.
What Kind of Results Can I Expect?
Six Month Smiles can handle a wide range of dental issues, but it is still primarily a cosmetic treatment, so it isn’t nearly as powerful or versatile as traditional braces. Often called “braces in a box,” Six Month Smiles has a mixed reputation among orthodontists, who consider the treatment a limited and less effective version of more traditional orthodontics.
Six Month Smiles was created for general dentists, not orthodontists, and while general dentists are oral health experts, orthodontists are more specialized. They complete an additional two to three years of orthodontic training after dental school to specialize in dentofacial orthopedics — or how the facial features relate to each other. In contrast, general dentists are simply required to take and pass a two-day course to offer Six Month Smiles.
Overall, Six Month Smiles treatment reviews are mostly positive, but the results are often not as comprehensive or dramatic as people initially hoped.
Other Treatment Options
Six Month Smiles is a great way to correct minor issues, but they aren’t for everyone. If your teeth are very crooked or you want a treatment method that is easy to maintain, you’ll need to look for a teeth-straightening method that can handle it. Fortunately, there are plenty of orthodontic treatments available.
#1) Comprehensive In-Office Clear Aligners
Like Six Month Smiles, a dentist administers these treatments in-person. However, they can treat a much wider scope of severe conditions. Invisalign is the oldest and most well-known brand, but ClearCorrect, Clarity Aligners, and SureSmile are also viable options. Because they’re often used for complex misalignments and bite issues, comprehensive in-office aligners take longer, often 12–18 months, to align your smile.
ClearCorrect and SureSmile could end up around the same price as Six Month Smiles, while Invisalign and Clarity are often slightly more expensive. Still, if you want hands-on care, but your misalignment is too significant for Six Month Smiles, these are all great options.
Want a closer look? Check out our in-depth reviews of Invisalign, ClearCorrect, SureSmile, and 3M Clarity Aligners.
#2) At-Home Clear Aligners
At-home clear aligners products like SmileDirectClub are very similar to Invisalign, but you administer their treatment from the comfort of your home. Rather than visiting a dentist or orthodontist in person, home aligner patients simply take dental impressions and send them to their chosen provider for analysis and approval. Once approved, the company customizes the aligners based on the patient’s impressions and ships them out.
Due to the lack of in-person dental visits, home teeth aligners are the cheapest option on this list, running $1,900 on average for a full course of treatment. Treatment with home aligners typically takes between 4–6 months, depending on your condition and the provider you choose.
For a breakdown of the five best at-home aligner options, visit our comprehensive comparison.
#3) Lingual Braces
Lingual braces look very similar to traditional braces but are placed behind the teeth, making them almost invisible. There are two types of lingual braces: incognito and standard. Standard lingual braces use “one-size-fits-all” brackets, which your orthodontist will apply to the backs of your teeth. Incognito lingual braces are much more popular and customized to fit perfectly behind your teeth.
The biggest advantage of lingual braces is their low profile. They’re hard to detect and definitely more discreet than traditional braces. Unfortunately, though, lingual braces can be challenging to clean. Plus, they may irritate your tongue and gums, and they’re much more expensive, at around $8,000–$10,000.
Final Thoughts
Six Month Smiles clear braces can help people with mild-to-moderate malocclusions — or who have relapsed after previous orthodontics — straighten their teeth quickly and discreetly. But even though it can deliver stunning smile transformations, it’s not the best option for everyone.
We recommend scheduling a consultation with your dentist to see if Six Month Smiles can give you the smile of your dreams.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do Six Month Smiles cost?
The cost of Six Month Smiles depends on the severity of your condition and your dentist’s rates, but it usually costs between $3,500 and $5,000.
Who is a good candidate for Six Month Smiles?
Anyone with a mild-to-moderate malocclusion, crooked teeth, or gaps can benefit from Six Month Smiles.
I had braces, but my teeth have shifted. Can Six Month Smiles help?
Absolutely! It’s a great way for patients who previously had orthodontics to straighten their teeth if their teeth have relapsed.
Does insurance cover Six Month Smiles?
Maybe. Most insurance plans don’t cover orthodontics for adults, but some may. If it does, insurance will cover a portion of the braces just like it would for traditional braces. Check with your dental insurance to see if your plan covers adults.
How long will treatment take?
As the name suggests, Six Month Smiles takes about six months to straighten your teeth, but it can take anywhere from four to ten months.
Do Six Month Smiles braces stain?
Yes. Because the brackets are clear plastic, they are susceptible to stains. To avoid discoloration, limit food and drinks like coffee, red wine, tomato-based sauces, and berries, and quit smoking.
Is Six Month Smiles comfortable?
Six Month Smiles are as comfortable, if not more comfortable, than traditional braces. Their Lucid Lok™ archwires apply consistent pressure for quicker straightening and an overall more comfortable experience.
Will a dentist monitor my treatment?
Yes! A major benefit of Six Month Smiles is that your dentist will see you every four weeks to monitor your progress, so if they need to make any adjustments, they can do it during that visit.
Will my braces hurt?
You may notice some discomfort after your initial appointment and after each adjustment, but it shouldn’t last more than a day or so.
Do I have to wear retainers?
Yes. You’ll have to wear retainers just as you would with any orthodontic treatment.
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