Smile Design
What is Smile Design
Smile design is a routine part of our Adult New Patient consultation. This is a process where we use our Lakeside Smile checklist to apply a series of proven parameters (found in appealing smiles) to your smile.
This allows us to establish what features are incorrect with your smile and how they can be corrected to optimise your smile.
Common features that are wrong with smiles are
- TOOTH POSITION – may be leaning too far back or forwards or simply crowding
- TOOTH SIZE / SHAPE – big and small teeth are very common. Tooth wear (making teeth small) is also a very common problem resulting in teeth being too short (so looking very wide).
- TOOTH COLOUR – especially due to dead teeth or stained fillings
- NARROW SMILES – with dark corners at the side of the smile
- TOOTH SHOW – There may be the incorrect amount of teeth on show. Too little or no show can be very ageing. Too much gum on show can also look less appealing
- GUM APPEARANCE – The gums frame the teeth and their health and position are an integral part of a smile
- REVERSE SMILE – Ideally the curvature of the upper incisors should follow the lower lip. When they curve in opposite directions to each other this is a less appealing feature.
Often improving a smile is a combination of correcting tooth position (orthodontics) and then bonding composite (see PICTURES below) to teeth to correct their proportions.
SMILE FILE EXAMPLES
Charlotte’s upper lateral incisors were in the roof of her mouth. We managed to get her teeth straight with fixed braces and with the extraction of two upper premolars.
Emily had a peg lateral that we built up to mimic a normal sized lateral incisor before starting treatment.
Steven had some staining and old crowns that needed replacing. We use Invisalign braces to align his teeth and then he had some whitening and had the 2 crowns replaced
This lady did not like her crowded teeth and narrow smile (the teeth at the side could not be seen from the front).
We used Fixed braces to correct the narrow smile and correct the levels of the gums.
Lucy had a lack of incisor show at rest. In fact we could not see them at all. We used Fixed braces followed by composite bonding to improve this situation.
Katy had incorrect gum levels due to crowding and tooth wear. We corrected the position of the teeth and gums with fixed braces and bonded composite on the worn central incisor to correct its size and proportions.
Steph had sucked her thumb as a child and this had resulted in the upper incisors curving away from her upper lip. Steph had braces on the inside (Lingual braces) to correct this.
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RECENT CASES
Browse some of our recent ‘Smile Design’ cases below.