A Great Smile Is The Key to Flirting

Most people have a few tricks up their sleeves when it comes to flirting ranging from lucky pants and a well-worn chat-up line to a reliance on the latest gear to get a result. But according to the new Smile Report from Oral-B Vitality, three out of four people think a big smile is the most attractive thing in someone of the opposite sex. A fashionable appearance was the next most important trigger to scoring with just 12% voting for style over substance.

Does your smile deliver real results? If so, you could be voted one of the smiliest people in Britain and one lucky person will win a VIP trip for them and three mates to LA. Send your biggest grin by Photo Message to 63400 or visit the Oral-B Vitality website mybigsmile.co.uk and your pearly whites could take you all the way to the red carpets of L.A.

Flirt With Your Smile

Oral-B Vitality Smile Expert Amanda Bate, director of Laugh Alive, believes that a smile can move mountains so it's important to know how best to flirt with your smile. "The best way to deliver a flirty smile is to bend your head slightly to one side with the nearest eyebrow to your target lifted slightly. You can keep your mouth slightly open or closed as you prefer but keep the grin wattage down to a half smile to stop yourself looking too cheesy" advises Amanda.

Smiling at strangers may be something that you normally avoid doing when commuting to and from work but try it out as a training session for your next flirting escapade. Over half of those questioned for the Oral-B Vitality Smile Report said that they would smile back confidently at a stranger who smiled at them on the street, with a further third open to giving a little smile and then looking away: a classic flirting technique.

Great Teeth = Great Smile = Great Results

Flirting isn't the only part of our lives where a smile will deliver top results. Adding a smile when asking for help in a shop has given over half of all the Oral-B Vitality Smile Report respondents' better service. Meeting new people in general and getting better service in a restaurant have all been made easier thanks to a smile. An Oral-B Vitality toothbrush is the easiest investment you can make to improve your smile and feed your confidence - it is clinically proven to remove 2x more plaque than a manual toothbrush.

What Wipes the Smile off our Faces?

Rude people caused 80% of respondents' smiles to be wiped off their face with queues (44%) and litter (38%) also acting as smile destroyers. When it comes to the daily 9 - 5, not surprisingly traffic wardens were voted the least smiley professionals by 36% with politicians, who many regard as sometimes being insincere smilers, gathering 20% of the vote.

Trying to maintain their image or a cold sore/other blemish near their mouth were the two most common reasons why nearly half of all respondents don't smile. Other reasons given were that people didn't like their teeth (15%), disliked their smile (14%) or they worried about bad breath (10%). Men were more worried about trying to maintain their image (28%) while women were more concerned about cold sores or a blemish near their mouth (27%).

Britain's Smiliest and Grumpiest Celebrities

Victoria Beckham (28%) and Anne Robinson (22%) are the weakest links when it comes to celebrity smile wattage: they were voted the top two celebrities Britons would like to see smile more, closely followed by Gordon Brown (16%). Kylie Minogue (30%) and Cat Deeley (21%) were voted as the smiliest celebrities with Jonathan Ross (18%) coming in at third place.