Contouring
Contouring, or shaping the teeth, is affordable and painless. Just a few minutes in our dental studio and The Smile Stylist can alter the shape and personality of your smile. It is a lot like filing your nails: that's how painless it is for most people.
A good candidate for contouring has healthy teeth that are uneven in appearance, but with a fairly uniform shaped arch. The shape of the arch is what you see when you bite into a sandwich. People with protruding front teeth, for example, do not have a uniform arch shape.
In contouring, nothing is added to a tooth-only taken away. The Smile Stylist will remove small areas of your teeth by sanding and shaping to resolve imperfections like an artist working on a sculpture.
In rare cases, where the procedure feels uncomfortable, the doctor can give you local anesthesia. Sometimes, The Smile Stylist will combine contouring with bonding and a veneer or two to achieve a nice even smile. You will have the opportunity to discuss tooth styles with the doctor.
Pros of Contouring:
- Quick
- Very minor sensation, like filing your nails
- Inexpensive
- Retains your natural tooth structure
Cons of Contouring:
- Cannot be reversed
- Requires a uniform arch shape
- If your smile is too “gummy”, with too much gum showing when you smile, there are several surgical techniques that can correct the problem.
Ideally, the perfect position for your upper lip when you are smiling is to just rest at the level where your gums meet your front two teeth (as shown in the “after” photos in this section). Often a combination of two or more procedures is used to obtain the optimal results. Your dentist and either a plastic surgeon, an oral surgeon, or periodontist will do the surgery. Surgical choices include crown lengthening, lip repositioning, and orthognathic surgery.
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