A sparkling white smile makes you look and feel happy. It improves others’ perceptions of you, making first impressions easier. More importantly, it boosts your self-confidence.

Some people aren’t fortunate to have white or straight teeth, making it hard for them to smile in public. This is where cosmetic dentistry helps.

What is Cosmetic Dentistry?

Cosmetic dentistry refers to the procedures used to restore one’s smile. As mentioned above, people with crooked, discolored, misaligned, or missing teeth find it challenging to smile in public areas. Cosmetic dentistry aims to correct the underlying issues behind the stigma.

While traditional dentistry primarily deals with dental health, i.e. solving caries and pain, aesthetic dentistry looks at the problem from another angle, without forgetting its primary goal. In addition to being healthy, teeth should be properly spaced, beautifully shaped and of satisfactory color to make your smile enchanting.

The Importance of Cosmetic Dentistry

The following section highlights the importance of cosmetic dentistry.

Improved Self-confidence

If you aren’t happy with your smile, it hurts your self-confidence. Cosmetic dentistry corrects perceived defects and restores your confidence. Whether a small or major procedure, the results will make you feel good about yourself.

For instance, teeth whitening can reverse the effects of smoking, overconsuming caffeinated drinks, and drinking hard water. In addition, dental implants can restore your mouth and improve your speech if you suffer from tooth loss.

Better Eating Experience

Most people consider chipped, crooked, and misaligned teeth aesthetic problems. But, beyond aesthetics, these issues affect how you chew and break down the foods you eat. Remember, digestion starts in the mouth, and the stomach anticipates small food particles for easier digestion.

You can’t break food down properly when you have cracked, chipped, or crooked teeth. As a result, you swallow large chunks that take longer to digest in the stomach. Cosmetic dentistry fixes these teeth, enabling you to chew properly and facilitate better digestion.

Improved Oral Hygiene

It isn’t easy to clean misaligned teeth since food particles usually get stuck in between the enamels. Likewise, cracks and chips tend to harbor plaque, which later hardens into tartar.

Cosmetic dentistry procedures like implants and wearing braces can help deal with misaligned teeth. In addition, when your teeth straighten, brushing and flossing them is easier, contributing to better oral hygiene.

Treating Past and Preventing Future Dental Issues

If you have dental issues like tooth discoloration, loss and misalignment, and gum disease, cosmetic dentistry can help correct them. For instance, teeth whitening provides a permanent solution to discolored teeth, while implants treat gum disease and tooth loss.

Similarly, cosmetic dentistry can prevent future dental complications. For example, bonding can fix cracked teeth, a precursor to cavities, tooth decay, and tooth loss.

Youthful Appearance

As you age, your enamels become thinner and expose you to potential issues like staining, cracking, and chipping. Cosmetic dentistry reverses these effects, giving you a youthful appearance.

A couple of interesting facts…

When it comes to cosmetic dentistry, new procedures and abilities are being presented all the time. Long gone are the times when going to the dentist was stressful and painful. Today, the pain has been brought to a minimum, and the interaction between the patient and the doctor has never worked better.

We already know that modern dentistry corrects various aesthetic and functional teeth defects, as well as the smile as a whole. There has been research that showed how a smile is one of the first things we notice about another person. So, it is not something to take for granted. An attractive and pleasant smile means a lot in everyday communication. For this reason, a revolutionary tool was developed for the active involvement of patients in designing their new look, the so-called “Smile Design”.

It basically means that a patient takes part in designing their new smile. The procedure consists of photographing the patient in a photo studio and taking prints, after which the photos are transferred to computer software and the design of a new smile begins (digital smile design). Each tooth can be shaped separately, with various tools. The teeth are shown faithfully and in natural color.

The patient can create the details of his future smile with suggestions, in cooperation with his aesthetic dentist, as desired. Based on the digital smile design, the technician creates a simulation of future teeth in wax. After the second visit to the office, by directly making temporary restorations in the patient’s mouth, the so-called “mock-up” is made – a faithful representation of the shape, size, and color of future teeth! At this stage, the function of future prosthetic work can be used, and the shape can also be modified, if necessary. In this way, extremely individualized and highly aesthetic works are obtained (ceramic veneers, metal-free dental crowns, etc.).

This is an entirely new term in cosmetic dentistry that denotes an individualized concept of creating a healthy and beautiful smile in cooperation with patients and dental technicians. It enables the patient to get a concrete picture of what the future smile will look like with the help of temporary, individually made models before the treatment itself, and to actively participate in its creation. Two decades ago nobody even dreamed of this being possible.

Wrapping Up

Cosmetic dentistry is vital to restoring the sparkling smile that everyone desires. It can be as simple as teeth whitening or as intricate as fixing dental implants. Whatever the procedure that needs to be done is, people have never been closer to having their version of a perfect smile. It is something reachable by almost anyone.

However, the best way to preserve your smile is to care for your teeth. Brush and floss daily, eat healthy foods, avoid smoking and sugary foods, and drink plenty of water. More importantly, never miss a dental appointment.