Nothing catches your eye quite like seeing a stunning smile full of two rows of dazzling white teeth. In fact, several studies show that smiling has a direct positive effect on people’s mood, affecting neurotransmitters in the brain that stimulate good feelings.
If there’s something you want to do to get that smile of your dreams — enter smile design.
The Definition Of Smile Design
Smile design is the process the dentist goes through to plan and visualize a patient’s desired smile. Sometimes it’s simply correcting some of the teeth imperfections that you might feel self- conscious about. Maybe you’re getting older and your teeth are chipping or you’ve noticed they’re starting to get discolored. Regardless of your situation, smile design is a procedure that can fully restore your dental health and appearance regardless of the original state of your teeth.
While you might take all the preventative oral care measures necessary for a healthy mouth, sometimes that’s just not enough. And when someone isn’t happy with their smile, they smile less, which can impact their self-confidence and quality of life.
The Benefits Of Smile Design
Dr. Klein will work with you to customize and plan your smile design, giving you the individual attention you deserve instead of a generic solution. And because teeth that look good are also functioning properly, Dr. Klein will make changes to improve the function and structure of your chewing system to also improve their appearance.
The smile design is planned to minimize the number of appointments you have and maximize the results. With your comprehensive plan, emphasis is placed on the visibility, alignment, shape, position, size, and color of the teeth.
And depending on what you choose, you could have a brand new smile in only a couple of hours or a couple of months.
What Makes Up A Healthy Smile?
When making an evaluation, your doctor will consider:
Visibility
Ideally the four upper teeth should be visible when smiling.
Shape
Teeth should fall into guidelines for size and proportion to one another, and the midline for the teeth should be aligned with the midline of the face.
Gum Visibility
No more than 2 mm of the upper gums should be visible when smiling, and the gumline should be symmetrical with the midline of the face.
Color
Teeth should be white in color, with some gradient in shade.
Smile Design Techniques
Once a plan has been formulated by your doctor, the next part of the process involves photography and photo editing software to mock up and virtually design your ideal smile before proceeding with the process.
Some of the more common techniques used by cosmetic dentists to correct or enhance a person’s smile include:
Whitening
Minor staining and discoloration are removed through a chemical application with a peroxide base applied directly to the teeth.
Bonding
Primarily used for chipped, broken or decayed teeth, an acrylic material is applied to a tooth that can be shaped and colored to match the natural look of the patient’s other teeth.
Enamel Shaping
The shape and look of a tooth is improved through the removal of minute amounts of enamel, the tooth’s outer layer.
Veneers
Thin shells of porcelain or composite resin are custom made to fit over teeth, providing a natural fix for chipped, stained, misaligned, worn down, uneven or abnormally spaced teeth.
Crowns and Bridgework
These are fixed prosthetic devices cemented onto existing teeth or implants. Crowns are most commonly used to entirely cover a damaged tooth or implant, while bridges are commonly used to cover a space if you’re missing one or more teeth.
Dental Implants
Titanium posts are surgically implanted in the patient’s jaw as an alternative solution for replacing missing teeth. Artificial tooth replacements are then connected to the posts to restore missing tooth above the gum.
Gum Contouring
This minor surgical procedure changes the position of the gum tissue and sometimes the underlining bone through the use of a laser to give you an even gum line.
How Can Smile Design Help You?
To learn more about how Klein Dental can help you plan a smile design, feel free to contact us anytime.
We’d love to learn more about your unique situation and find a treatment plan that’s right for you.