Sitting in the waiting room of a dental practice and not having to wipe nervous perspiration from your brow or achingly clutch your jaw is quite strange. A Michael Jackson Thriller parody is playing on a wall-mounted television. The “you’ll need some filler” lyrics gets a few smirks and titters from patrons.

In what is a first, when Irish Country Living is called to see the dentist (or rather dentists), it is with excitement we enter the small white room. You see, there will be no fillings, veneers or root canals: we are at Quay Dental in Galway to interview Drs Lisa and Vanessa Creaven – The Spotlight sisters.

Along with running a successful dental practice, in August 2016 these Galway girls launched Spotlight Teeth Whitening Strips. Since then, the brand has grown exponentially, scooping a number of awards and now selling worldwide. Oh, and Lisa is only 33 and Vanessa is only 27.

Vanessa and Lisa Creaven, Quay Dental, Galway. \ David Ruffles

As much as is humanly possible for a dentists’ surgery, the practice has a light environment. Its progressive nature is evident all around, offering a sedation clinic for nervous patients, Invisalign clear braces and tongue-tie procedures for newborn babies.

Lisa took over the practice from a retiring dentist eight years ago, Vanessa joined some years later and from the outset one of the main aims was to be as innovative as possible.

“We are quite responsive to what our patients want,” says Lisa. “Some of them ask: ‘Oh, do you do this?’ I’d say: ‘No, but that’s a good idea, I’ll look into that now.’

We don’t just rest on our laurels and say: ‘Okay, we are going to do fillings for the rest of our lives.’ We want to do different things and offer services that you can’t always get that readily.

And, from the girls’ innovation in their dental practice, great things came. Lisa and Vanessa saw that many of their patients wanted whiter teeth. With EU regulations becoming more stringent, whitening in a dental surgery costing between €300 and €500 and many products on the shelf being ineffective, the sisters decided to develop their own at-home teeth whitening product.

Science behind the strips

Of the science behind the strips, the girls say that for a teeth whitening product to work, it needs an active ingredient. Spotlight uses hydrogen peroxide. By keeping the strips very close to the teeth and using a peroxide that is available to the teeth, less peroxide is needed, limiting sensitivity while still getting great results.

“In terms of teeth whitening, the only active ingredient that works is hydrogen peroxide,” explains Vanessa. “Now, the level of hydrogen peroxide in a product can impact how effective that product is, but it’s not just the level, people think you need the highest level to whiten your teeth – you don’t. The higher the level, the more adverse affects you get.

“The effectiveness of our product is due to the fact that we have a really bioavailable hydrogen peroxide, so when the strip goes on it can penetrate the teeth really easily and our strips are really tight against the teeth.

“What might seem like straightforward knowledge to you, sometimes you need to utilise that. So like with teeth whitening, it’s something we really know a lot about. Don’t ask us about fashion, beauty or anything else, but teeth whitening we get,” laughs Vanessa.

The sisters describe themselves as “nerds at heart” and both studied dentistry in Trinity. Lisa came back to Galway after finishing college, working in another private practice before setting up her own. Vanessa worked in a public hospital and then in a private practice in Dublin, before returning west and joining her sister.

A family affair

From a suckler and sheep farm in Corrandulla, the girls have two other siblings, Paul and Alma. Lisa is the second eldest and Vanessa is the youngest. Interestingly, all four of them are dentists and neither of their parents have any links to the profession. Their father is a farmer and engineer and their mother is a special needs assistant.

Over a cup of tea after a quick photoshoot in the home of interior designer Dee Noone, the girls explain that it was Lisa who initially set the dentistry trend.

Paul, now living in Canada, is the oldest and after qualifying as an engineer he went back to study dentistry as a mature student in UCC. Alma, the second youngest, also studied in UCC and now works with the girls in the practice on Woodquay.

Growing up on the farm was a very grounding experience – one Lisa and Vanessa really enjoyed.

“Country living is a very natural and normal way to grow up, it’s very grounding,” says Lisa.

"There is always stuff to be done, cows calving, picking stones. We really enjoyed it and all of our cousins were near us. We are a very typical Irish family with about 50 first cousins"

The work ethic that has gotten them where they are today was born on the farm, interjects Vanessa.

We grew up on a farm and our dad used to work full-time, he’s an engineer in Hewlett Packard. We would see him getting up at five to go back to the farm before work. So work ethic is something we have always grown up with and we are proud that we work hard.

From the little girls that grew up on the farm, Lisa is now married with two little girls of her own and Vanessa is preparing to tie the knot later this year.

Julia and Margaret, Lisa’s daughters, are two and 10 months respectively. There is a lot of pressure on mothers these days to be perfect, Lisa thinks and she likes the balance between working and being a mother.

“I didn’t know what it was going to be like, I didn’t know if I would hate going back to work, but I love both. Obviously the kids are brilliant, so when I’m home I’m totally with them, but when I’m away I focus on work. I just need that balance,” says Lisa thoughtfully.

I think people put a lot of pressure on women to be the kind of perfect mother, but that’s not reality, just do your best. There was no talk 20 years ago about being a good or a bad mother, you were just a mother.

Vanessa loves being the fun aunt and laughs that she can “mediate at their level – I can act like a two and a half year old”. The smaller set of sisters are also going to be the flower girls at her wedding.

Two of a kind

Naturally, working so closely and spending so much time together, the two women understand each other exceptionally well: “Lisa will know me by a look that no one else will even pick up that I have made,” chuckles Vanessa.

Along with knowing each other inside out, the girls’ similarities aesthetically do not go unnoticed: “People always ask are we twins. Vanessa loves that question,” jokes Lisa.

Despite their resemblances, the girls have very different personalities, which may be the reason they complement each other so well. Vanessa is spontaneous and just goes for things, while Lisa is more of the type to consider things carefully.

“You can see how we work,” reflects Lisa. “Vanessa will be like, ‘let’s do this’ and I’ll be like, ‘oh God, is that going to work and how is that going to fit?’ Whereas Vanessa, you’re just like plough on.”

A happy smile is something many people covet and the difference in people’s confidence at the beginning and end of a course of treatment can be immense, Vanessa has noticed.

“I always love when you first see a patient and they will come in and can be kind of shy or nervous. They’ll say: ‘Well, I definitely won’t be able to do that.’ But by the end of it they’re swinging in the door, they’re really comfortable. It’s lovely to see it.”

Dentistry, so often associated with pain and suffering, is not so with Lisa and Vanessa. Both their practice and Spotlight have happy connotations and are tools people can use to improve self-confidence, to smile just that little bit wider and brighter.

Visit www.quaydental.ie for more information.

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