A smile can be warm and charming, often disarming others you come in contact with. A smile says a great deal about one's personality but often if you're uncomfortable with the way your teeth look, it can easily be misinterpreted in your smile. Chances are, if you're embarrassed by your teeth, whether due to color, spaces, chips or crookedness, you might subconsciously be employing gestures to hide them. If someone appears to be guarded about their smile, it could easily be interpreted as being uptight or unfriendly. For instance, talking with your lips tightly pursed so as not to reveal your teeth might make one appear as the kind of person who's trying to hide something. Or in a more extreme example, you might even place your hand over your smile when you laugh, exhibiting insecurity and a lack of confidence. Often people train themselves to smile with their lips closed or not smiling at all. How boring!!

With the advancement and innovation of dental materials, cosmetic dentistry came to the forefront of our esthetically driven society. Cosmetic dentistry is that branch of dentistry that has married form to function to create attractive, if not perfect, smiles that function in a state of health with the individuals needs. Recent studies have shown that while most people are dissatisfied with their smiles, only a small percentage of them realize how simple it is to change their smiles. Cosmetic dentists help you determine how to improve your smile, thereby looking better and feeling better about your appearance. Whether the problem is the color of your teeth, the shape of them or if the teeth are chipped or spaced or simply that you wish you had an eye catching smile, cosmetic dentists can employ one or more techniques to give you the smile you once had or one that you always wished for. While areas such as periodontology (gums), implants, and orthodontics all play a role in cosmetic dentistry, the most common techniques for changing your smile are: bleaching, bonding, laminates, and simply reshaping or contouring your teeth.

Bleaching

Bleaching is a relatively new and popular way to achieve a bright, white smile. There are two types of bleaching: "in office" and "at home" bleaching. In office bleaching, known also as power bleaching, is performed at the dental office. The dentist first treats the teeth with a mild acid, which allows the tooth structure to become more porous to the bleaching solution, a 30 - 35 % solution of hydrogen peroxide. The solution is applied directly to the tooth and is then exposed to a high intensity light, which accelerates the oxidation process. In office bleaching can take from 1-3 visits and has varying degrees of success.

At home bleaching involves the fabrication of a customized plastic splint or mold that fits over the teeth and is filled with a solution of carbamide peroxide. Depending on the different manufacturers percentage of carbamide peroxide, the patient can wear the splint for 2-4 hours or even wear it while one sleeps. The process usually takes 2-3 weeks to achieve results. Both types of bleaching are not permanent and usually have to be repeated after two years.

Bonding

Bonding is a process whereby the dentist first etches the enamel layer of the tooth with mildly acidic solution and then a composite resin or plastic paste is molded onto the teeth. The composite resin is then hardened by a high-intensity light. The dentist then sculpts the composite. Bonding is often used for chipped or fractured teeth or to close the space between two teeth. It can also be used to completely cover the surface of each tooth to cosmetically mask discolored or malpositioned teeth.

The advantages to bonding are: it is a painless procedure, where anesthesia is generally not required. The results are immediate and usually require little to no tooth reduction.

The disadvantages are: bonding has a limited esthetic life expectancy and easily chips or stains, requires routine maintenance, and is an opaque material which limits its aesthetic use.

Porcelain Veneers and Laminates

Porcelain Veneers or Porcelain Laminates are the extension of the bonding technique and consists of applying a thin veneer of preformed porcelain, custom made in the laboratory, directly to tooth structure. The inside of the porcelain laminate is etched to enhance its attachment to the etched enamel tooth surface. Composite resin cement binds tooth surface to the porcelain with the aid of a high intensity light, which activates the resin to bond the two surfaces. The main advantage of porcelain veneers is the strength and beauty of porcelain, which due to its translucent qualities, give a truly life-like appearance. Porcelain does not stain as does composite resin and porcelain has a much more beautiful luster than composite. These qualities, along with porcelain's extremely low rate of wear, make porcelain veneers the Rolls Royce of cosmetic dentistry. Porcelain veneers are expected to last anywhere from 10-20 years and take only two visits to the dentist to transform your smile. In the first visit the tooth structure is reduced slightly in order to make room for the laminates so they will not appear too bulky. This procedure requires local anesthesia and takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to complete depending on the number of teeth to be veneered. Teeth that have been reshaped with a drill to accommodate the veneers obviously can't be returned to their original appearance. During the second visit, the laminate veneers are fitted, inserted with the composite resin cement, and then shaped and polished.

Porcelain Veneers can correct a multitude of imperfections in a smile, including changing the color of teeth, changing the shape of the teeth, making crooked teeth look straight, correcting gaps or spaces between teeth, lengthening teeth, and making the arch wider to give greater support to the lips and cheeks and create a fuller smile.

Fixing Crooked Teeth with Cosmetic Contouring

Reshaping or Cosmetic Contouring is an ideal treatment for very small fractures or chips or to simply reshape what nature has given you to a more aesthetically pleasing smile. Anesthesia is not necessary since the dentist uses the drill and sandpaper discs and polishing wheels to reshape the teeth with a minimal loss of tooth structure. Once the treatment is done, that's it; no replacements or touch-ups are necessary and the cost and time involved are minimal.

Contouring can change the smile line. If one front tooth is a little longer than the other, contouring can even them out. Since the natural process of aging flattens out the edges of the front teeth and tends to square off the angles, cosmetic contouring can round the corners of each tooth to soften them, making them appear more feminine when necessary. While men's teeth tend to be angular and strong, often squared off, women's teeth are usually more attractive when the corners are rounded off. Pointed canines, which sometimes have a vampire look, can be rounded and softened with cosmetic contouring. And lastly, often symmetry of the smile can be achieved simply by contouring the teeth.

All of these procedures can be used individually or in combination to give you the smile that you always wanted.