Invisalign straightens teeth with a sequence of clear, removable trays instead of brackets and wires. At Straight Finish, Dr. Shauna Fung and Dr. Grace Chung — both board-certified orthodontists — plan every Invisalign case from your own scan and check each stage themselves.
Whether aligners are right for you depends less on the product than on your bite and your habits. This page explains how the trays work, what they can and cannot do, and how we decide with you. For the head-to-head with braces, see clear aligners vs braces; for teenagers specifically, Invisalign for teens.
How Invisalign works
An iTero scan of your teeth becomes the treatment plan: a series of Invisalign trays, each shaped a little differently from the one before, moving your teeth a fraction at a time. You wear each set for about one to two weeks, then move on to the next. Because the whole sequence is designed on screen before anything is made, you see the projected result at the start of treatment rather than the end.
The trays are thin, clear and flexible. They are hard to spot at conversational distance, and they come out for meals and for brushing and flossing.
Who Invisalign suits
The honest test is not the case, it is the wearer. Aligners only work while they are in your mouth, and the plan assumes 20 to 22 hours a day — that is what the movements are calculated on, not a stretch target.
Patients who do well with Invisalign tend to:
- want treatment that is hard to notice
- prefer to eat, brush and floss with nothing fixed to their teeth
- keep the trays in without being reminded
- have crowding, spacing or a bite problem in the mild-to-moderate range
If wear time would be a struggle, or your case needs movements that fixed brackets handle more reliably, we will say so and talk about braces. There is no judgement in it: the wrong appliance worn badly is worse than the right one worn well.
Invisalign or braces?
| Invisalign | Braces | |
|---|---|---|
| How it looks | Clear trays, hard to spot | Brackets on the teeth — metal, clear ceramic or gold |
| Comes out? | Yes, for eating and cleaning | No; fixed until treatment ends |
| What it asks | 20–22 hours a day, every day | Nothing to remember |
| Food | Anything, with the trays out | Skip hard, sticky and chewy foods |
| Cleaning | As normal | Threaders or a water flosser around the wire |
| Suits | Mild to moderate cases, reliable wearers | Complex movements, younger patients |
| Repairs | Rare | The occasional loose bracket or wire |
The longer version — with the situations where each one wins — is on our clear aligners vs braces page, and the article Braces, clear braces, or clear aligners: how to choose walks through a decision.
What Invisalign can correct
Crowding, gaps, mild to moderate bite problems, and teeth that have drifted since earlier orthodontic treatment. More severe bite problems are usually better handled with braces. Your consultation settles which applies to you — and if the answer is braces, you will hear it from us at that visit, not after a few months of trays.
What it costs
The figure depends on how much your teeth need to move, how long that takes and whether refinement trays are needed at the end; for many cases it lands in the same range as braces. We give you the total before treatment starts and go through your insurance benefit with you — see Invisalign costs and financial information.
Invisalign for teens
Teen trays carry a small indicator that shows wear time, so it is visible rather than reported. Whether aligners suit a particular teenager is a conversation about that teenager, not about the product — more on our Invisalign for teens page.
Where we are
738 58th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Patients come to us from across Brooklyn and from the Lower East Side, Chinatown, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. We speak English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
See how it works
Invisalign and the Invisalign logo, among others, are trademarks of Align Technology, Inc., and are registered in the U.S. and other countries.