Designing Your Smile Makeover: What to Expect

It is possible to enhance the overall appearance of a patient’s smile through a unique combination of cosmetic dental procedures. This is known as a smile makeover. Dental providers make these treatment plans custom to each patient. Here is what to expect at every step of a smile makeover, from design to execution.

Understanding smile makeovers

A smile makeover is not just one procedure but a combination of several procedures to accomplish a more picture-perfect smile. There are often many procedures to choose from, even to address one pain point. For example, stained teeth may be whitened with dental bonding, a composite resin material, or professional teeth whitening take-home kits that use medical-grade bleaching agents.

Note that not every smile makeover will involve whitening the teeth. These customized treatment plans can address other cosmetic imperfections, including crooked, crowded, misaligned, or misshapen teeth. Smile makeovers can also address gummy smiles, where too much of the gums show when smiling.

What to expect during your first appointment

The first step in any smile makeover will be the consultation with the dental provider and their team. This will involve discussing what the patient would like to improve about their smile, such as whether they want to get rid of discoloration, straighten teeth, reshape teeth, and more. The goal is to give the dental provider a better understanding of which treatments may be necessary.

In addition, the consultation also involves an oral examination, and often dental X-rays, to ensure the patient is in good oral health. Any oral health conditions like tooth decay and gum disease will need to be treated before moving forward with a smile makeover. This is because cosmetic dental procedures focus on aesthetics, not on restoring functionality to the smile.

Types of smile makeover treatments

Once good oral health is confirmed, the dental provider can help the patient explore treatment options. They may design a smile makeover that involves a couple or several of the following treatments:

• Dental bonding: The same tooth-colored material is used for dental fillings but applied for cosmetic purposes.
• Dental veneers: Thin, tooth-colored shells that create a more uniform smile.
• Tooth contouring: Sculpting or reshaping the teeth to make them appear more even.
• Gum contouring: Sculpting the gum line to reduce its bulkiness.
• Teeth straightening: Gradually shifting teeth into proper alignment or altering their shape to make them appear straighter.
• Teeth whitening: Bleaching the teeth to remove stains or applying tooth-colored materials to conceal them.

Each of these treatments has its own eligibility requirements. For instance, the teeth must have a substantial amount of enamel to qualify for tooth contouring or dental veneers, but this would not be an issue for teeth straightening processes like clear aligners. We can determine candidacy during a consultation.