An Up-To-Date WonderSmile Review: What You Need To Know (U.K. 2022)

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WonderSmile used to be among our top ranked at-home clear aligner providers in the U.K. However, their website recently went dark, leaving us (and their customers) with a lot of questions.

We’re keeping this review for reference purposes, but since it appears that plenty of customers have waited months for their products and haven’t gotten adequate responses from the WonderSmile customer service team, we advise you to choose a different provider for your teeth straightening needs.

What’s Going On With WonderSmile?

WonderSmile’s U.K. website has been out of commission since early June 2022. Judging by their third party online reviews, this came as a big shock to their customers. Many customers report that they never received the products they ordered (and paid for in full). Other customers were left high and dry in the middle of their treatment, unsure of how to proceed. For people wrapping up their treatments, getting a retainer to protect their hard-earned results became near impossible.

Understandably, WonderSmile has gotten a fair amount of criticism for this abrupt change. Though many customers have gotten refunds through their bank, plenty of others have gone weeks without any communication from WonderSmile whatsoever.

Based on what we’re seeing, we no longer feel comfortable recommending WonderSmile to our readers.

What Is WonderSmile?

When they were up and running, WonderSmile boasted numerous locations across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the U.K. Compared to many of their competitors, WonderSmile had an extensive international reach. They shipped personalized, Invisalign-esque aligners directly to your doorstep, which let you shift your teeth from home. These aligners were invisible and perfectly matched the contours of your teeth, so you could wear them confidently in public.

The best part? After your initial teeth scan appointment, WonderSmile didn’t require any office visits. Instead, their team would design and monitor your treatment remotely.

WonderSmile attempted to separate themselves from the pack by offering more flexible services, including various physical locations, different payment plans, and nighttime-only treatment.

Like other home-based clear aligner products, WonderSmile was primarily a cosmetic treatment. Their aligners were designed specifically to correct mild-to-moderate cases of spacing and crowding issues, along with some minor bite conditions. People with severe conditions were likely to see better results from a treatment plan managed in-person by a dentist, like braces or Invisalign.

How Did WonderSmile Work?

The WonderSmile team had to see your teeth before they could move them, so you needed to get a teeth scan or complete one of their impression kits. WonderSmile had multiple clinics across the U.K., including in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and more.

Unfortunately these clinics are no longer affiliated with WonderSmile. But when they were, you’d schedule a 15-minute visit, where a “WonderSmile Consultant” performed an intraoral scan of your teeth, which they’d send off to the dental team for analysis. As an alternative to these scans, you also had the option to complete and return WonderSmile’s at-home impression kit.

Wondersmile’s team would evaluate your digital teeth images to determine whether you were a good candidate for treatment. If so, they created a digital preview which showed how your teeth would move during treatment.

If everything looked good, you’d let them know and they would begin production on your aligners. Throughout your treatment, you would post images of your teeth so that their team could evaluate your progress and adjust your treatment (if necessary).

WonderSmile Pros & Cons

When they were still operational, WonderSmile offered a great service and effective treatment. However, when you factor in the current feedback from frustrated customers due to poor communication and long wait times, WonderSmile has clearly dropped the ball in more ways than one.

We base our clear aligner provider evaluations on a comprehensive five-point comparison of each company’s effectiveness, affordability, convenience, appearance, and customer support. This guide primarily focuses on the way WonderSmile rated in each category when they were operational. Here’s a flyby of WonderSmile’s main advantages and disadvantages when its service was in full swing.

Effectiveness

It’s natural to have questions about how well home aligner treatment works. After all, you don’t have face-to-face care from an orthodontist every month. WonderSmile used to provide trustworthy and effective treatment.

Generally, home aligners are only effective for mild and moderate cases of crowding and spacing, and WonderSmile was no different. If you have a more severe condition, like a jaw misalignment, you’re probably better off going with an in-office treatment like Invisalign.

By requiring regular photo check-ins, WonderSmile ensured that treatment stayed on track.

Every month of WonderSmile treatment, you would send photos of your teeth to WonderSmile’s team. This way, they could make sure that your teeth were moving as expected and adjust your timeline if necessary.

This oversight wasn’t as robust as Invisalign’s in-person office visits, but it still allowed the Wondersmile team to monitor progress and watch for any potential problems. Straight Teeth Direct has similar monitoring procedures, which help to keep your treatment on track and answer any questions you might have as you go along.

It’s unclear who manufactured WonderSmile aligners.

Even a perfect treatment plan can fall short if the products are faulty or ineffective. This is why some home aligner companies promote their partnerships with established, widely trusted manufacturers. However, we never found out who produced Wondersmile’s products — they may have outsourced their production, or they might have created them in-house.

Because Wondersmile never revealed where and how they manufactured their aligners, it’s hard to evaluate their product quality. The results we’ve seen in online reviews suggest that they had consistent and reliable manufacturing practices, but we can’t say for sure.

WonderSmile aligners were cut straight across (rather than trimmed to match the gumline), which made them more powerful.

Some companies trim their aligners to match your gum line, while others, like WonderSmile, cut them straight across the top.

A straight cut might seem like a drawback, but in some ways, it’s actually an advantage. Yes, straight-cut aligners are slightly more noticeable than scalloped ones. But they can also use the gums as an anchor to apply up to four times more force. If you want the most effective aligners, go with a company that cuts aligners straight across rather than matching the gum line.

Affordability

Like many others, you may have stumbled upon WonderSmile while looking for a cheaper alternative to traditional orthodontic treatment. Home aligners present a significantly more affordable option than Invisalign or braces, which can cost up to £5,000.

Among other home aligner companies, however, Wondersmile’s prices were fairly high — although they had an interest-free payment plan to help make those prices more accessible.

Customers paid £2,250 for standard WonderSmile treatment, or £2,290 for their NightClear plan.

This sticker price covered the cost of your teeth scan, treatment plan, clear aligners, and monthly oversight. It did not, however, cover your aftercare retainers, which were sold separately for £60.

Wondersmile offered interest-free financing plans that helped make their price more manageable.

WonderSmile offered a financing plan called WonderPay to make their treatment more accessible. WonderPay was interest free, so you would pay the same amount whether you pay one lump sum or spread it out.

You would make a minimum down payment of £225, then monthly payments of at least £162.50. If you opted for the NightClear treatment instead, it was at least £229 upfront followed by minimum monthly payments of £165.50. These plans required a soft credit check to qualify, so they weren’t available to everyone.

If you only needed treatment on one arch, you got a discount.

Convenience

Life is busy. Sometimes trying to fit another thing into a packed schedule can be downright frustrating. That’s part of what makes home aligners so appealing. Unlike Invisalign and other in-office options, they don’t require any office visits. Instead, you administer your entire treatment from home.

After your initial WonderSmile teeth scan, you wouldn’t have to step foot in a dentist or orthodontist’s office for your entire treatment. And you would have likely seen your final results in 6–9 months, compared to Invisalign’s 12-month average timeline and the 18 months that braces typically require.

When it comes to convenience, Wondersmile stole the show from both braces and Invisalign. Even when compared to other home aligner companies, they were a highly convenient option.

Wondersmile clinics made it super easy to get your treatment started, and they had an impression kit option too.

Though no longer possible, you used to begin your Wondersmile alignment by visiting one of their retail locations for a professional teeth scan, or by making moulds or your teeth with an at-home impression kit.

Generally speaking, teeth scans are easier and faster than impression kits (since customers sometimes find it difficult to make accurate impressions).

This was great for people who lived near a city. They could simply pop into the nearest office location for a scan. But if you were not near an office, you needed to travel to find one or use an impression kit.

Wondersmile had ten clinics across London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leicester, and Manchester, plus one in Glasgow.

Photo check-ins improved Wondersmile’s effectiveness but required a few extra steps.

As we mentioned earlier, WonderSmile required you to send photos of your teeth to their team each month so that they could monitor your progress. This helped keep treatment on track, but it also required a little more work on your end. That said, taking and sending a few photos each month was a small price to pay for more reliable treatment, so it was worth it overall.

Plus, it offered you regular oversight without the hassle of scheduling and attending office visits every few weeks, like you would with in-office options.

Start to finish, treatment took 6–9 months on average.

From the day you inserted your first aligner until you see your ideal smile in the mirror was around six months. And if you chose the NightClear option, it was more like nine.

A six-month timeline is much shorter than hands-on alternatives like Invisalign, which usually take 12–18 (because they often treat more complicated cases), although it’s fairly average for home aligners treatment.

WonderSmile’s NightClear Aligners allowed you to wear your aligners only at night.

Appearance

For teeth straightening treatments, most adults agree: the less visible, the better. They rarely want to attend business meetings, dates, or special occasions sporting visible metal brackets. Clear aligner products pride themselves on being far more discreet than braces. For this reason, all clear aligners tend to excel aesthetically, and WonderSmile was no exception.

But while they’re all made from transparent, BPA-free plastic, variations in materials manufacturing processes cause each brand to look slightly different. Which aligners look best depends on your specific tastes and preferences.

Wondersmile’s aligners were smooth and reflective.

Smooth, shiny aligners don’t really match the natural surfaces of your teeth. Your teeth are porous and appear matte, not completely smooth and shiny. So, Wondersmile’s aligners could look artificially reflective. But everyone has a different style and some people actually like the way these shiny aligners make their teeth “gleam.”

Wondersmile cut their aligners straight across the top rather than trimming them to match your gum line.

WonderSmile’s aligners had a tiny overlap with your gums, which people could potentially notice in close quarters. But they had a good reason for this design. Straight-cut aligners can use your gums as anchors to help exert more force on your teeth.

“Scalloped” aligners that match your gum line might be less visible, but they can also be slightly less effective.

Wondersmile aligners couldn’t incorporate attachments, which helped maintain their low profile.

One reason Invisalign and other in-office aligners can treat such severe misalignments is because they can incorporate attachments like elastics or buttons that they affix to your teeth. These attachments make them a lot more powerful, but also more visible.

Dentists can only place attachments during office visits, so home aligners like Wondersmile can’t use them. But that also means there are no extra bumps or hardware on your teeth.

Just like other clear aligner brands, you needed to take out your aligners before eating & drinking to avoid stains.

All clear aligners are susceptible to food and beverage stains — that’s why it’s important to remove them before eating or drinking anything besides water. Wondersmile’s aligners were reasonably stain-resistant, although we certainly would not have recommended drinking coffee, red wine, or other dark liquids while wearing them.

Wondersmile’s smooth, straight-cut aligners were much more discreet than braces, but were slightly more visible than aligners from other companies.

Customer Experience

Orthodontic treatment is expensive, and you only have one set of teeth. It’s important to feel completely confident that your treatment provider will treat you right and have your back if anything goes wrong.

In-person treatment allows for personalized care and robust oversight, all tailored to your specific smile goals. That’s more difficult to achieve with a fully remote treatment. WonderSmile once did an admirable job providing a satisfactory customer experience, but now they have a lot of customers feeling like they were deserted.

Wondersmile’s customer service used to be prompt and helpful, but now customers can wait quite a while before they receive any clarification about the terms of their treatment or purchase.

What Are WonderSmile Customers Saying?

If you judge WonderSmile by the reviews they received prior to June 2022, customers seemed pretty satisfied with their experience overall.

Customers were often pleased with their results and smile transformations, as well as WonderSmile’s product quality and teeth scan process. Before June 2022, there were very few negative reviews available, and the issues they reported seemed like isolated incidents.

Since then, however, many customers have left reviews expressing frustration over WonderSmile’s abrupt silence. Many waited several months for products that never arrived, or felt like they were left stranded in the middle of their treatment. Some customers that completed their treatments were worried their teeth would move out of position while they waited to hear back about aftercare retainers.

These concerns are completely legitimate. After all, if you buy a good or service, you expect to receive it.

WonderSmile responded to a small amount of these reviews, and while it was encouraging that there wasn’t radio silence on their end, they seem to have since gone dark on UK customers.

WonderSmile vs. Invisalign

At-home clear aligners have plenty of excellent qualities, but they still can’t match the effectiveness of Invisalign and other in-office treatments. Invisalign requires regular office visits, during which a dentist or orthodontist can adjust your aligner plan and implement attachments (like buttons and elastics) that induce more powerful tooth and jaw movements.

But this added effectiveness comes at a higher price, and Invisalign customers often pay thousands more than they would for home aligners. Still, if you have a bite misalignment or more severe crowding or spacing, Invisalign might be a better option.