Smile Design

Dr. Wilderman: Smile design has come a long way over the last 30 years. An integral part of smile design is beauty. Beauty is about two things: symmetry and proportion. And of those two things, proportion is the most important. The people that are the most proportional and symmetrical, we call actors and models. The rest of us, we have some asymmetries and some proportion issues. And that comes to their teeth as well. When someone smiles, one of the most important proportions is what I'd like to call the pink to white ratio. Pink being the gums and the lips, and the white being the teeth. If you've ever noticed someone with a gummy smile, it's because their pink to white ratio is off. The eye instantly notices asymmetries. If there's an asymmetry from left to right of the two front teeth, the eye picks up on that immediately. If those two front teeth are not exact mirror images of one another, it will be noticeable. If the midline is canted left or right, that's going to be immediately noticeable. If the midline is a little bit off to one side, that's acceptable to the eye. A perfect example of that is the actor Tom Cruise. His midline is off by half a tooth, but I don't see too many people complaining about it. So we can break the smile down to each individual tooth's proportions, the height to the width. It's very important that the front tooth, that the width is 75 to 80% of the height. If it's not, if it's closer to 100%, if it's as equally wide as it is tall because someone's tooth is worn, it's immediately noticeable that something's wrong. The average person that comes into the office knows that there's something about their smile they don't like. They may not know exactly what that is. And because we do this every day and we're so passionate about it, we get to put their photographs up on the monitor in front of them and go by each individual tooth and determine exactly what it is they'd like to change. And through the design process, because we've done this thousands of times, we're able to analyze proportion issues, symmetry issues, and communicate that to our laboratory so that in the end, they get a smile that maybe even exceeds their expectations. Announcer: If you want or have been considering a masterpiece smile for yourself, contact our office today.