Smile Design
Smile Design is a branch of cosmetic dentistry that provides the principles governing a beautiful smile. It uses the face as a guide to produce a smile that not only dazzles, but also one that compliments the face, thus ensuring the smile is both attractive and natural in its appearance.
We will highlight certain Smile Design principles in the following pictures to illustrate the use of these concepts.
In this smile, the front teeth are chipped and worn down, thus giving people an impression of an older person’s smile instead of his or her actual age group. By restoring the worn down and chipped front teeth, the smile is being transformed in the following picture.
Smile Design uses a concept called Golden Proportions that help the cosmetic dentist plan the shape and size of teeth that are either missing or are badly damaged due to disease like dental decay or trauma. Golden Proportions interestingly is also often found in nature, like the proportion of flower petals to the entire flower, etc.
In the picture above, one of the permanent adult canine tooth is congenitally missing, therefore the primary or baby canine tooth did not fall out during his or her childhood days. This retained baby canine is smaller in size, and is therefore very distracting when the person smiles. This problem is easily corrected using a dental composite veneer, paying particular attention to the golden proportions principles to restore the smile back to harmony again.
Very often, our smile is being tainted by unsightly gaps, like that of the smile in the following picture.
Once again, using Smile Design principles in conjunction with golden proportions, we are able to solve this problem rather easily with dental bonding. This is a procedure that involves using a tooth coloured dental composite resin material that is bonded to the tooth surface with minimal preparation /damage to the original tooth. In this very conservative method, unsightly gaps can be closed without the usual drastic removal of the original tooth which is commonly associated with porcelain crowns or even porcelain veneers. The following picture showcases one such example in which dental bonding was used to close the unsightly gap to restore the smile.
Therefore when we are looking to improve our smile using cosmetic dentistry, we should always discuss with our dentists what type of smile design we are looking for, is it a more feminine or more masculine look, is it a more aggressive or more demure look, or is it a more youthful smile or an older, more mature smile.
By using Smile Design principles, we will be able to custom design a smile that is not just attractive, but will compliment who you are, ie, The Ultimate Accessory.
Transforming a broken down smile...
To an attractive, natural looking smile using Smile Design is now achievable.