A beautiful smile goes a long way. Not only is your smile the first thing people notice about you, but it will also leave a lasting impression. One of the most magnetically attractive features people are drawn to is a beautiful, genuine smile that radiates confidence. A great smile can effortlessly speak volumes. However, like bad breath, people tend to be consciously or subconsciously put off by a less than healthy mouth. Worse, a busted smile can also make the unfortunate bearer less confident and less willing to smile and, in the eyes of many, appear to be less open to engagement.
In the past, most patients had to live with severe dental and oral deformities or damage. Whether due to neglect or trauma, patients didn’t have a lot of choices. Today, however, thanks to innovations on multiple fronts in the field of cosmetic dentistry, consumers have more choice than ever when it comes to addressing their smile.
Cosmetic dentistry is now a real way for people to enhance or have their smiles restored. In some cases, patients can even design a brand new smile more in line with what they desire than what they naturally possess.
Following are seven things cosmetic dentistry can do for you (and one crucial thing it can’t)!
7 Ways Cosmetic Dentistry Can Improve Your Smile
1. Whiter Teeth
Everyone wishes their teeth were just a few shades whiter – and with good reason. It’s one of the defining elements of a brilliant smile. But achieving the kind of natural-looking, pearly white teeth with a lustrous and rich shine that celebrities rock on the red carpet is not an easy task. Sure, there are over-the-counter solutions available to everyone at the local grocery store. And while these basic solutions may brighten your smile, the results are often incremental at best and take a long time to produce noticeable results. Furthermore, over-the-counter whitening solutions, such as whitening toothpaste or whitening strips, only tackle surface staining. They do not address intrinsic staining which plays a much larger role in overall dental coloration.
That’s where cosmetic dentistry really shines (pardon the pun). Using tested and powerful whitening procedures, we can dramatically brighten up your teeth in just a few sessions. The intrinsic staining – the stains deep within your enamel that can’t be addressed with surface methods – can be helped with cosmetic dental whitening with better, longer-lasting results that look great. If you want whiter teeth, ArtLab Dentistry can help.
2. Stronger Teeth
Form and function both play a crucial role in the overall beauty and aesthetic punch of your smile. Strong teeth naturally tend to look healthier, sexier, and more attractive. As a result, firming up and reinforcing failing teeth with new structural elements, whether in the form of inlays, onlays, porcelain veneers, or an outright crown might be a great way to salvage your natural teeth while giving them a more attractive shape, coloration, and overall profile.
Of course, cosmetic dentistry isn’t always all about additive solutions like veneers. Biomimetic approaches to cosmetic dentistry can also strengthen teeth and make them more beautiful as well. Biomimetic dentistry seeks to integrate and utilize as much of a natural tooth as possible. Dental-grade resins, porcelains, and adhesives are applied to a patient’s teeth to give them better functional strength, repair blemishes, and improve the overall look and feel of a person’s dentition.
3. Perfectly Proportional Teeth
Whiter, stronger, straighter teeth are what everyone wants. But what many patients (and some dental professionals) forget about are the overall proportions of a person’s smile. As it turns out, proportion plays a huge role in how people perceive a person’s smile. Even if a person has straight white teeth, if the overall proportions are off, strangers may still judge that person’s smile to be strange or even unattractive.
Achieving perfect proportions in a person’s smile is no small task. Everything from the amount of gum showing, to the size and shape of teeth, to the position of the lips must be taken into account. There are ideal ranges for every factor, and the right proportions for each when it comes to a person’s smile. Studies show, for example, that most people consider a smile where more than 4 millimeters of gum is showing (about one-eighth of an inch) to be too “gummy”. A skilled and knowledgeable cosmetic dentist with an eye for aesthetics can design and craft the perfect smile where the total ensemble of factors all work in harmony to produce something truly special. Getting the proportions right is something that takes a truly gifted practitioner like Dr. Reshad.
4. Brand New Teeth
Sometimes a person’s natural teeth are beyond saving, or the costs both financially and to a person’s long-term health simply don’t make sense. In these cases, cosmetic dentistry can provide a valuable and appealing alternative: natural-looking replacement teeth. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, from dental implants to custom-crafted dentures to dental bridges. In some cases, a prosthodontist might even be able to replace an entire dental arch (an entire jaw of teeth) with All-On-Four dental implants.
When it comes to something truly, dramatically transformative for a person’s smile, ArtLab Dentistry offers whole-mouth restorations wherein we can replace all of a patient’s teeth. Patients can even get a brand new smile in a single day with attractive and functional provisional teeth while their final restorations are being crafted. These transformative, comprehensive solutions offer patients with dire cosmetic needs a real, potentially life-changing solution.
5. More Functional Teeth
Many with weak or damaged teeth often have very practical problems associated with their dental conditions. A person with broken teeth will likely also have difficulty eating food, enunciating words effectively, communicating with others, and even smiling properly. Cosmetic dentistry can also be very functional as well as aesthetic. Fixing, repairing, and otherwise restoring teeth aesthetically, also often entails restoring teeth functionally. It is important to remember that while your smile and teeth do indeed play crucial roles in perceived attractiveness, you also need them to survive.
6. Healthier Gums
Your teeth are only part of what makes a great smile really shine. Your gums play just as an important a functional and aesthetic role in the health of your mouth. The color, shape, and overall proportions of your gums can enhance the beauty of your teeth and your overall smile. Cosmetic dentistry isn’t just limited to addressing dental issues. A wide variety of cosmetic procedures exist that are aimed squarely at affecting the aesthetics of a person’s gums. Gum recontouring, for example, is designed to help reshape the shape and proportion of your gum line.
7. Contagious Confidence
“Every smile makes you a day younger.”
Add to that old proverb the fact that there is scientific proof that intentionally smiling can “trick” your brain into feeling ever-so-slightly happier as well as boost your overall health and you have a recipe for confidence. Think about it. If you know you have a beautiful smile, you’ll smile more, making you feel better, which can lead to more smiles all around. A beautiful smile can boost your self-confidence. As we all know, confidence is very sexy. Of course, confidence is, ultimately, something that is built from within, but a dazzling smile can certainly enhance, magnify, and amplify your natural beauty and personality within yourself. In the same way, cosmetic dentistry doesn’t necessarily generate confidence. But it can enhance, magnify, and amplify your natural self-confidence.
Cosmetic Dentistry is Not A Cure-All
While the marvels of modern cosmetic dentistry can produce marvelous results and create for patients a smile they’ve only dreamed of, it is not the cure-all for all oral health issues. At the end of the day, cosmetic dentistry should be viewed as a way to enhance natural beauty or rehabilitate and restore it. It is not a replacement. That means all patients should focus on letting their natural teeth shine first. Daily brushing, flossing, and regular visits to a dentist are crucial components of a dental hygiene routine that will not only preserve natural teeth but also allow cosmetic enhancements to shine all the brighter.
Likewise, cosmetic dentistry is but a tool to help our patients achieve a higher level of aesthetic beauty. A beautiful smile can help many patients feel more confident. A brilliant smile can give a patient a stronger sense of self. However, a beautiful smile is not a substitute for inner confidence, it merely enhances it. ArtLab Dentistry is here to help you attain and retain the level of beauty through your smile that you have always wanted.
DDS, PROSTHODONTIST
