Isobel Cameron

“No one should feel afraid to be at their most happy state.”

Isobel had her adult front teeth removed almost as soon as they came in, when she was eight. As her cleft team recommended against filling in the gap until she had her braces off, she always smiled with her mouth closed. Laughed with a hand over her mouth.

Isobel tried to hide her difference, but she could not. Bullies in school called her names and vandalised her home. Bullies online sent hateful messages for daring to show her face — all anonymously.

When she was 19, she was finally able to get the gap in her teeth filled with prosthetics. To her, that day she had waited 11 years for was as transformative as any of her 15+ surgeries and it’s why she smiles with such confidence today.

Her advice for others with unique smiles: “Smile as much as you can.”