My teeth and I have a… complicated…relationship. They’re (objectively) ugly, and have always been something I’ve felt self-conscious about. After a brief stint in braces as a kid, my parents decided they were “giving up” on fixing my teeth, as they so delicately put it. I guess the prevailing assumption was that I’d marry rich, or some such bs, and be able to afford to fix my teeth on my own as an adult.
Well, based on my last post on this site, you can probably surmise that the whole marrying rich plan never panned out. As it turns out, I’m a marry for love, not for money, kind of gal. That’s ok. My partner is amazing and loves me for who I am, ugly teeth and all.
A Poor Girl’s Attempt To Get Her Teeth Fixed: Crystal Braces
Way back when I was attending college, I stumbled on a company that was called Crystal Braces. Don’t bother trying to look them up, as far as I know, they’ve long been out of business. But cue my excitement, they were a tele-dentistry company that claimed they could provide clear aligners to help straighten your teeth without ever having to set foot in an orthodontist’s office. I could fix my wonky teeth cheaply from home? Nice.
Well, pretty short story shorter, Crystal Braces never panned out. I signed up and took my teeth impressions at home and, for some reason, the fit trays Crystal Braces sent me didn’t fit…at all. I repeated this process a few times, sending them new impressions and getting new fit trays, but the trays never fit. After a few tries, the company apparently went out of business and just stopped all contact with me. Luckily, I hadn’t paid for my treatment up front, so I wasn’t out too much money. Just what I spent on impression material and I think something like $100 as a down payment.
Smile Direct Club
The Crystal Braces debacle was disappointing, but whatever. I kind of put fixing my teeth out of my mind for a while, since I still couldn’t afford to go the traditional braces route. Then in 2016, which feels like forever ago now, I found a company that was then called Smile Direct Club. They claimed to do the same thing as Crystal Braces had – to provide clear teeth aligners to fix your teeth from the comfort of home. I bit the bullet and decided to try them out!
I don’t want to go into too much detail about Smile Direct Club in this post, since it’s not directly about them. But I’ll say that I completed clear aligner treatment successfully with Smile Direct Club and was pretty happy with my results. However, at the end of my treatment they sent me a retainer that, for some reason, didn’t fit right. I tried to wear it as much as I comfortable could, but I noticed over time that my teeth were starting to shift. I didn’t super keep up with the company but I believe Smile Direct Club also started having issues and went out of business. Someone correct me if they know more.
It’s hard to get help from a company that doesn’t exist, and the more time that passed the more my teeth shifted back to the way they were before my treatment. My retainer eventually cracked and I stopped even attempting to wear it. I fully admit fault here as I should have found another way to get a new retainer, maybe from another company or a local dentist, and I just put it off for too long. Yeah, I’m an idiot.
The company did eventually return under a new name, I believe they are called SmileSet now. I contacted them back in January to see if they’d be willing to help me at all – maybe offer a discounted treatment since I was a prior customer. But they weren’t very helpful, which I understand since my teeth shifting back was ultimately my fault.
AlignerCo
Noooow we finally get to AlignerCo! The whole retainer issue made me wary to complete treatment with SmileSet, especially since they seem to be one of the more expensive companies when it comes to these clear aligner treatments. I started to research other companies that perform the same services. It turns out tele-dentistry has seemingly grown in popularity since the obscure Crystal Braces days, and there are quite a few companies that offer clear aligners from home now.
I first started looking into AlignerCo around the very end of 2024. I contacted them to ask a few questions in very early January, after I had received my reply from SmileSet and decided that I didn’t want to go with them. I ultimately did decide to give AlignerCo a try, mostly due to the fact that they had the lowest price out of all the companies I was looking at, and let’s be honest, I wasn’t super interested in paying a ton of money to fix my teeth…again.
Interested in trying AlignerCo for yourself? You can use my affiliate link to get $150 off your aligner treatment. I will receive a small kickback, at no additional cost to you.
My AlignerCo Timeline So Far
- January 7th: Purchased AlignerCo’s ‘SmileAdvantage’ plan
- January 13th: Received my impression kit
- January 15th: Completed trial impression, emailed photos to AlignerCo
- January 21st: Completed the rest of my impressions (after receiving confirmation that my trial impressions were acceptable), emailed photos to AlignerCo
- January 23rd: Mailed my original set of impressions back to AlignerCo
- January 25th: AlignerCo confirmed receipt of my impressions
- February 13th: AlignerCo contacted me for photos of my teeth (although I had already uploaded them via the app)
- February 18th: Received and approved my 3D smile projection
- February 21st: AlignerCo notified me that my original impressions were “slightly compromised”, so they were sending me a trial set of aligners to check the fit
- March 20th: Received trail aligners and sent photos wearing them to AlignerCo
- March 22nd: AlignerCo responded back that the trail aligners did not fit properly and I’d have to redo my impressions
- March 30th: I received new impression material
- April 8th: I emailed photos of my new impressions
- April 9th: Received confirmation that my impressions looked ‘workable’, and to send them in
- April 10th: I mailed back my 2nd set of impressions
- April 18th: Received confirmation that they had my new impressions in their lab
- April 23rd: Received an email stating that my aligners were being produced and would ship in around 3 weeks
- May 13th: Received a tracking number for my aligners
- May 16th: My entire set of 15 top and bottom aligners, plus a complimentary teeth whitening kit, and one set of retainers arrived
- May 18th: Started wearing set one of my aligners!
So, as you can see…this whole thing is a process for sure! I originally purchased my treatment plan back at the beginning of January and now, in mid-late-May, I’m finally wearing my first set of aligners!
AlignerCo “First” Impressions
I’m aware of the fact that there are a lot of negative reviews about AlignerCo online. Thankfully, yes, I was able to find some positive reviews too and decided that, for me, taking the risk is worth it. I’m using AlignerCo primarily to (hopefully) fix spacing between my top teeth. It’s my assumption that fixing spacing is probably easier for these at home aligner companies than something like massive crowding. I also have an overbite, which I think makes my case even easier to deal with, because I have the space for my top teeth to be moved back a bit, closing my spaces, without interfering with my bite. In essence, as ugly as my teeth are, I feel like they’re a relatively simple case to fix.
Or at least to improve. I’m not looking for perfection here, which I think is another reason why I’m so okay with trying these at-home companies. I don’t need or necessarily expect to have perfect teeth when my treatment is complete. I just want them to look better than they do now. Closing the spaces in my top arch, even if my teeth aren’t 100% perfect, would constitute a successful treatment in my eyes. Because hey, nobody’s perfect! I actually think wonky teeth can look cute/unique, so removing the spacing that has made me so self-conscious while leaving a bit of the wonkiness behind would be fine with me!
Customer Service Experience
One thing I will say is that before I purchased my aligners, AlignerCo’s sales tactics were…aggressive. I asked a few questions via the chat feature on their website and was then bombarded with emails and calls, which I found annoying. It almost, almost was annoying enough to turn me off from purchasing from them.
That aside, I’d say once I did make my purchase, the company has, so far, been good about communicating with me. Whenever I’ve had to email photos or questions, they typically get back to me the next day. One time when I needed a faster response (I needed a shipping label to mail back my impressions) I used the live chat feature on their website and the associate there helped me right away.
I’m not convinced “Ele”, the name they use in their email responses and sometimes in chats as well, is a real person, but the responses at least seem to be written by a real person. Responses have always been professional, and easy to understand.
They seem to ask for reviews a lot, which at some points I felt was a little disingenuous. Like asking me to review the company as a whole just based on a simple interaction with an agent in chat. So far, besides whatever I’m posting here, I refrained from reviewing them because I felt like it was only fair to actually see how my treatment goes first.
This Post Is Getting Long…
I didn’t originally intend for this post to be so long! There were some other things I wanted to cover more in-depth, like the process of taking impressions and my 3D smile projection, but I think I’ll post those separately so this doesn’t get too overwhelming. I’ll come back and link all my related AlignerCo posts together for anyone who’s interested in reading more. You should be able to click here to see all my AlignerCo reviews/updates so far.
Like I mentioned above, as I’m writing this I’m on my first day of wearing my first set of trays! I’m supposed to change trays every 10 days. I think posting updates with every tray might get boring for everyone, so I was thinking I might do updates every 5 trays? If you’re interested in AlignerCo or just want to hear more about my experience, stay tuned for a few more posts about my start up experience and then updates as my treatment progresses.
For now, I’m giving AlignerCo a generous 4 stars, based solely on my experience so far. The rating is subject to change.
Hopefully someone finds all this useful. I know when I was looking for in-depth AlignerCo reviews, I didn’t find too much besides some short reviews posted on their own site and a few people who posted video reviews. If you’re in the, sadly seemingly small, minority of people still interested in more in-depth, written, reviews, then these posts are for you! Stay tuned for more updates coming soon(ish)!
These posts are in no way sponsored, paid for, or otherwise influenced by AlignerCo. I have no relationship with AlignerCo besides just being a normal paying customer. The company was not made aware that I’d be posting in-depth reviews. I believe my aligner experience to be typical.
I am not associated with AlignerCo in any way besides being a regular paying customer. The company is not paying for or otherwise influencing my reviews at all. I want to document my actual experience!
I’ve unfortunately been dealing with content scraping websites stealing my content without my permission. You shouldn’t be seeing this post on any website besides wildheartshomestead.com! If you’re reading this on any other site, please consider visiting me over on my official site and contacting me to let me know. Thanks so much!